Slashdot Mirror

Oracle can't let this work without a hitch.

Last year, Oracle taunted Amazon into abandoning Oracle.

10/2/2017: Oracle's Ellison: Amazon & SAP Use Our Database Because We're Better
https://www.lightreading.com/e...

I'd say that two years is pretty quick for replacing and re-engineering a non-trivial chunk of your infrastructure.

1. Not all transit providers are equal. Some make better deals with peers than others.

Not all watermelons are equal, either; some are larger and/or have fewer seeds than others. In fact, outside of mathematics, it is quite rare to find two truly equal entities. Basically, inequality is a given in the real world. Hell, not all streaming video providers are equal, which is why many people subscribe to two or more. In fact, Netflix uses multiple transit providers[1-8] for similar reasons.

2. Some transit providers are less expensive because they lack the ability to make the best deals with peers.

This is just plain backwards. A transit provider who makes better peering deals has lower costs, so they don't have to charge as much! I know this seems counter-intuitive when you consider that those providers also offer a better service, as you'd think that's something they could charge a premium for, but it should make a bit more sense when you consider the corollary: a transit provider who makes worse peering deals has higher costs, which they must recoup from their customer. Sort of like how Costco charges less because they make better deals buying in bulk; or, rather, other retailers must charge more because they didn't make the same deals.

3. To cut costs, Netflix chose a less expensive transit provider.

First of all, your assertion that Netflix uses a single transit provider is just plain wrong[1-8]. It has been made public knowledge (despite being none of our damn business) that their primary transit providers are Level 3 and Cogent[1-8], and that they purchase transit services from at least 4 other providers, Tata, XO, NTT, and Telia[1,3].

As for your assertion that Netflix only buys from the lowest bidder, well, it appears that the buy from anyone who can provide transit between them and the networks their customers are on[1-8]. Not only do they buy transit from all three available providers who route directly from their POIs to Comcast's[1], they even buy transit from Comcast now[3]. And, despite that, I still see buffering issues with Netflix on a 75Mbps Comcast Business connection, which points to the issue not lying with Level 3, Cogent, or any of Comcast's other providers with names not starting with C and rhyming with "bombast".

In case you want sources, here[1] are[2] a[3] few[4] you[5] can[6] check[7]. out[8].

At least you proved you weren't trolling; I guess that only leaves one other possibility.

Footnotes:
[1] "Netflix attempted to address congested routes into Comcast by purchasing all available transit capacity from transit providers that did not pay access fees to Comcast—which involved agreements with Cogent, Level 3, NTT, TeliaSonera, Tata, and X0 Communications. Although all six of those providers sold transit to the ent

I'm seeing tons of attacks coming from China and Hong Kong ( http://longtail.it.marist.edu/... ), but only Level 3 seems to be doing anything about blocking them http://www.lightreading.com/se... Even though they'll never be able to block all the attacks, the backbone providers could at least slow them down.

I believe "Bell Mobile TV" was a unicast IP service, but we know that Verizon and AT&T are planning roll-outs of LTE Multicast in the US, which is a very different beast.

Would it still be against "net neutrality" to allow carriers to serve up specially priced content on LTE Multicast, or would they have to make LTE Multicast available to all content providers equally? And how does one actually do that (given that the Internet, in general, has failed miserably at getting "general access" multicast routing to work)?

I've had good luck with the Motorola SB6141 DOCSIS 3.0 modem. (The SB6121 is apparently an obsolete model.) Eventually DOCSIS 3.1 modems will be available.

It took me an estimated 9 hours of communicating with Comcast representatives to get Comcast to bill at the advertised rate, instead of far more than Comcast advertises. This is what works: Call the Comcast executive offices at 215-640-8960. Be very polite and logical, but insistent.

Don't check your internet access speed with Speedtest.net. Apparently that web site always reports the advertised rate, the connection rate, not the data delivery rate. DSLReports Speed Test shows that I get one-seventh the speed Comcast advertises.

Comcast was the 2014 Worst Company In America.

Comcast has apparently found that most people don't spend the many hours Comcast makes it necessary to protest over-billing.

It's interesting to me that Comcast apparently expects employees to abuse customers, and Comcast employees hear that as permission to abuse Comcast, also.

Apparently the U.S. government no longer protects the people, but just allows any abuse that will make the rich richer, or allow the violent to be more violent.

So if you have 35 megabits down, now you have 35 megabits up. 75 down, 75 up, etc...

Granted, not everyone has FIOS, or can get it, but it may well provide pressure to others (Comcast we're looking at you) to match it.

Cable's limitations on upstream bandwidth are architectural and not caused by their normal asshole business practices.

Even the latest and greatest DOCSIS 3.0 hardware being rolled out to consumers is limited to bonding 4 upstream channels.
Cisco's literature says it's capable of 120 Mbits upload, but that seems a little optimistic, and I don't know where they pulled 30 Mbit/channel from.

In some markets, Comcast has pulled fiber to the home and offers 505/100 Mbit service, but the rest of their markets only have a maximum 150/20 Mbits option.

The reality is that the vast majority of home users don't require significant upload bandwidth and, other than playing numbers games in markets where they have direct competition, Comcast has no compelling reason to do anything about it.

I recall reading this article in 2012. It talks about ways that cable could upgrade its DOCSIS 3.0 setup to boost upload bandwidth, but concludes nothing will happen until DOCSIS 3.1 show up. That article was written 2 years ago and 3.1 infrastructure isn't expected to be widely rolled out until 2016/2017.

TLDR: Comcast doesn't care about your upload speeds.

Why is something newsworthy when it's sensationalized? Why was this not: http://www.lightreading.com/et...

It should offend anyone who follows tech if a company that had been a world leader for decades would listen to the bean counters and stop investing in a core technology which constituted a major part of that company's identity. That's exactly the sort of irresponsible and short-sighted decision-making that should be denounced forever for what it is, simply evil.

Well Nokia pre-Elop did exactly that. Nokia chose to disinvest from the wireless modem business, going from a position where they owned the IP for the entire hardware stack to simply selling it off.

And this was at a time when everyone else was starting to rush INTO the development of LTE chipsets not sell off the entire unit BEFORE the company was seriously tanking.

Incomprehensible and evil.

See here and here.

But the Cisco incident is relevant too.

slashdot = stagnated.

http://img.lightreading.com/internetevolution/RonMiller.gif

look at the smugly smile.

You try to design a router ASIC with variable length addresses!

You and I might struggle, but Tony Li didn't seem to have a problem with it. Really. Go and look at Google Groups for info.big-internet around 1993-1994 and see Tony provide pseudo-code that demonstrated that variable length was not a problem for ASICs, nor was it any slower.

Yes, it is obvious that fixed length must be better than variable length. Yes, that is incorrect. What everyone 'knows' may be far from the truth.

Now, continue surfing using the more efficient, cheaper ATM (fixed size cells) NIC rather than that inefficient , expensive Ethernet (variable size frames) NIC.

The difference is that Cisco actually announced line cards (14x10GE, 20x10GE, 1x100GE) that work on 140G slots, and Juniper just announced that it has "silicon" that can do 250G per slot. That reeks of an announcement that was meant to overhang the market while Juniper gets the equipment to upstage today's announcement from Cisco.

Well Juniper "announcing" 100GE cards would kind of be redundant since they already have them up and running on the Verizon network...

http://www.lightreading.com/document.asp?doc_id=188835

Having set up Asterisk a couple of different places AND attempting to integrate most of the things discussed, I can tell you there are a whole chain of problems.

a phone system that I could sync to my computer so I could update the phone book over all the units
Meaning a single address book shared/synced at all phones? You would need phones with *some* kind of open client interface. Of which, there are exactly zero.

(if not sync with Address Book or Outlook),
Please, dear Lord. No. This is another binary jail. But it looks like you want your home computer's Outlook client to be somehow involved. Which, is another programming mountain to climb separate from the first feature.

keep a log of caller IDs
This, Asterisk can do. A more flexible solution requiring some coding is Freeswitch. As others have mentioned, you have to plug the POTS line into your PC. Is there a GUI that can render the results to meet your satisfaction? Maybe.

or even forward me new voicemail notifications.
Asterisk and Freeswitch can do this too. But, there are numerous details that drive people away. Do the hard/soft phones you end up using have ways to implement call forwarding? How about controlling call forwarding at the server only? Is there a GUI available to meet your standards of usable? I haven't worked with Asterisk in a long time though maybe there are prettier ways of doing things now.

Dog forbid you want to integrate your mobile phone into the fray.

BTW, there's a whole forest of patents on voicemail notification alone. Even *if* something was made, it probably violates patents. http://www.lightreading.com/document.asp?doc_id=98808

Answers.

>> All I see nowadays is price, price, price. Price is everything. All encompassing, all considering and the sole and only consideration in nigh every walk of life. Companies are gouging their businesses in order to save pennies whilst their products stagnate or regress. Consumers care not for long term value or even short term utility as price is the first and last arbiter in their purchase decisions.

What brand toothbrush do you own? Did you seek recommendations from other before buying it? Are you aware of its features? If not, your purchasing decision should be based on the assumption that it is a low quality, replaceable, and commoditized. See [[Gresham law]].

>> ISPs in the US seek to redefine broadband because they want their packages to be treated like commodities; like wheat and coffee beans. You don't care where the bean comes from, they're all the same. So you buy the cheapest one. If all internet connection packages are "broadband", can you guess what people are going to do? ISPs aren't the only industry that wants to do this, or indeed that is doing it.

This is the opposite of what Comcast, Verizon and AT&T want. They want to maintain what they currently have. However, this is threatened by the idea some people have that "broadband adoption" in the US is low. E.g. if politicians get the whiff that the market is not providing enough broadband, they will legislate. Combine this with the fact that tier 1 and tier 2 service providers do not want stimulus funding (source: http://www.lightreading.com/document.asp?doc_id=180976) and the result is that the incumbents want the standards lowered so that they are not threatened.

...because of crap like this.... ...because of their secret rooms.. ...because they spied on Americans' emails... ...because they provided the NSA with a database of American's phone calls... ...because they used their influence to lobby Congress to retroactively get immunity and hide their activities... ...because of their former CEO's stated views on Network Neutrality...

I'm telling everyone I know to switch to T-Mobile. I get great 3G reception, they will actually unlock my phone after a couple months, they have great customer support (in my experience), visual voicemail, and they support Android. $25/a month for unlimited internet...

I have NO affiliation with T-Mobile aside from using them for a couple years, and I would invite criticism of them so people can make an informed decision. I'm just sayin... in MHO an iPhone isn't worth AT&T. For anyone on the fence, Android is actually pretty damn great.

Keeping in mind that Apple doesn't make the batteries, they have to have some degree of trust in their suppliers. I doubt anyone can picture Apple stupid enough to bait PR nightmares and lawsuits when their image is very important to their business model. Apple's typical reaction is the industry best-case product-problem-coverup-job - do everything reasonable to stick a lollypop in the mouth of anyone that screams, and quietly correct the problem so it doesn't happen again. They're unlikely to admit fault, that would just fan the flames. (pun?)

Batteries lately though do seem to be a serious problem all around for everyone. DSLAM phone boxes blowing up down the street, laptops and ipods catching fire, liio batteries puffing up like balloons. Inadequate testing if you ask me. New technology trying to get rushed into a highly competitive new market, skip the tests it's good enough, just ship it. Then stuff blows up catches fire, or generally misbehaves. But right now rechargeable batteries are making a shambles out of Moore's Law.

This isn't really news any more than the 5 o-clock rush hour. Blame Apple, blame Sony, whatever, it's going to happen. It's not anywhere outside the bell curve yet.

AT&T is metering Beaumont now? OMFG! Why do I have to live in the one place in the entire motherfucking country that has metered 'bandwidth' on every ISP available? And why has no one else on Slashdot pointed out that there is a city in the United States where TWO major corporate ISPs are capping their internet services? Why isn't Beaumont the internet's net neutrality battleground instead of these other cities?

It was bad enough when Time Warner started doing it, but now AT&T has done it, and quietly for sure. I simply had no idea, and it was not announced in any way. I thought AT&T's trial was in Reno only. This is a fucking outrage, and I think I will spend my day off tomorrow contacting my representatives in federal, state, and local government. Seriously, this is BAD. I was shopping for DSL as recently as LAST WEEK to try to get away from paying Time Warner anything, even though I am (quite luckily) still grandfathered in to their unmetered plan. I thought I had no options because DSL isn't even available where I live, but now I quite literally have NO FUCKING OPTIONS, they have all been stripped away. It's only a matter of time before they start billing me the metered rate, so I have to act quickly. Does anyone else here live in Beaumont? We need to protest!

Here's another article I found on the Beaumont caps.

Except they didn't, really: http://www.lightreading.com/boards/message.asp?msg_id=99975

I'll just leave this here.

and the extra 'tuning adapter' boxes you'll need from your cable company were certified in July http://www.lightreading.com/mobile/document.asp?doc_id=159407/ by the cable companies' consortium.

Now its just a matter of when your cable company will make the hardware available to you.

I am wondering what UPS/Generator Hardware was in use?
Where would the "failure" (Short/Electrical Explosion) have to be to cause everything to go dark?
Sounds like the power distribution circuits downstream of the UPS/Generator were damaged.

Whatever vendor provided the now vaporized components are likely praying that the specifics are not mentioned here.

I recall something about Lithium Batteries exploding in Telecom DSLAMs... I wonder if their UPS system used Lithium Ion cells?
http://www.lightreading.com/document.asp?doc_id=109923
http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/08/25/1145216
http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/09/06/0431237

Related reading: http://www.lightreading.com/document.asp?doc_id=142594

So how is that a problem when they are raking in $13 billion a year?

Wouldn't the irony of ironies be ...

if this study was conducted by Cisco Brazil?

• Verizon was in on the $200 billion given by the government to do what they're doing.
• Verizon is getting billions in tax breaks on top of that from states across the country.
• Verizon is using public lands for free.
• Verizon gets to completely lock off this government subsidized network to all competition.

Also keep in mind that Sprint has up to 90 MHz of bandwidth at 2.5 GHz. Arguments about 2.5GHz being better-suited to data often implicitly rely on that point.

A business colleague I once worked with was *given* a brand new Matrix 5000 by APC for writing an actually true Kudos real-life-APC's-UPS-saved-my-IT-ass letter to APC following another major Ice Storm back in '01. (I think those matrix 5000 batteries may actually be heavier than car batteries.) I am looking forward to the UPS industry offering LiON or LiPO batteries (at least to those of us who actually have to install/move the darn things...) Of course we all remember this: http://www.lightreading.com/document.asp?doc_id=109923

And Yes, that's exactly what my generator is doing at this moment... powering the blower and thermostat on my *gas* furnace. and powering my APC UPS et al. (too bad NG is so high!) I think your Matrix 5000 would be a very good standard item for most homes (plus an automatic transfer switch and generator tie-in)... but just like burglar alarms in homes, people don't change the batteries.

http://www.engadget.com/2007/11/30/comcast-ceo-sees-160mbps-internet-in-2008/

See also LightReading:

Comcast Closes In on 100 Mbit/s

Comcast may not be the fastest today, but they don't appear to be sitting around doing nothing either.

.../Ed

In the meantime:

(Iliad) delivers its data, video, and voice service bundle over IP using ADSL and copper plant owned by France Telecom SA (NYSE: FTE - message board). Better yet, Iliad earns its margin on a bargain-priced 29.99 (US$41.50) per month data, video, and voice bundle in a hypercompetitive broadband market.
(...)
The newest incarnation, the HD Freebox (with a separate ADSL2+ adapter) integrates hi-def and standard-def decoders (including MPEG-4), a digital video encoder, S-Video and HDMI connectors, WiFi, plus landline VOIP and mobile voice over WiFi.
(...)
Free's 30 package is chock-full of value-added service features. At the top of the list is unlimited telephone calls within France and to 49 other counties, plus integrated messaging and a WiFi VOIP client for mobile phones. Also included are over 100 digital TV channels, plus up to 28 Mbit/s downstream Internet access via ADSL2 (for those customers on short copper loops) and 1 Mbit/s uploads. It also offers a user-generated video app called TV Perso Free that leverages the video encoder capability of the HD Freebox.
(...)
For 5.99 ($8.28) a month, Free sells a subscription video-on-demand (VOD) package with access to more than 50 films and 100 TV series, updated weekly.
(...)
While Free gives its customers a great bang for their euro, the company is not sacrificing financial results in the process. In addition to strong EBITDA results, Free generated a gross margin of 43.5 percent on its broadband service in the second quarter.

http://www.lightreading.com/document.asp?doc_id=133564

Welcome to 2007 :p

The batteries implicated in the fires were advanced, very expensive lithium-metal-polymer types developed and built by Avestor. They were built for long-life outdoor installations: rated for -40C to 65C, temperature regulated, self monitoring: these were no low end batteries! AT&T retained an independent failure investigation quoted here, which "...found that the battery design was sound, as were the safety features, and concluded that the risk of hazardous failures with this battery is as low, if not lower, than the risk with alternative batteries, which are used by other telecommunications and cable companies in similar applications."

While the technology was impressive, the business was unprofitable and Avestor closed in 2005.

See...
http://www.lightreading.com/document.asp?doc_id=13 1210&page_number=1&image_number=8&site=

for a totally over-the-top case mod. It's Unreal meets Terminator.

This isn't really normal VoIP - what happens is that the phone runs the normal GSM protocols over UMA (universal/unlicensed mobile access - see http://www.umatoday.com/umaOverview.php for more info), from the phone, over the WiFi access point and broadband router, up to a UNC server (Universal Network Controller) - this is somewhat like a base station controller (Google for BSC+BTS+GSM for more info) that controls the UMA+WiFi access boxes in a large number of homes.

So... GSM voice runs over UMA which runs over IP, as far as the UNC, which then converts it back into normal voice protocols (SS7 switching basically) to the MSC (GSM voice switch) - not sure if that link is over TDM (conventional GSM) or IP. Anyway, the UNC box doesn't actually do any VoIP, all voice switching is done by the MSC, exactly as for normal GSM phone calls.

The benefits of all this are:

1. In-home mobile coverage - I could really do with this at home, as my coverage is very poor - buying a generic powered radio booster (antenna x 2 plus amplifier) is expensive, and doesn't help if there's absolutely no coverage. For some people in rural areas, this may be only way to get mobile coverage at home.

2. Lower cost calls - depending on subscription costs of course, and installation costs, but price should really be lower (see point 4.)

3. (For the mobile operator) More precise 'home zone' tariffs - subscriber gets low cost or free calls from home via UMA, rather than in wider area based on zipcode/postcode. Good when you are at home, less good if nearby.

4. (For mobile operator) Reduce load on normal base station network, and the aggregation network from base stations to the voice/data switches in Mobile core (MSC etc)

5. (For mobile operator) Encourage people to use their mobile phone for all calls, instead of landline - a.k.a. fixed-mobile substitution - and to use the mobile for everything including Internet surfing, email, etc. The controversial Palm Foleo could help here, by letting you use a large keyboard and screen with your single smartphone device, but that's not essential to this idea.

6. (For mobile operator) Harder to switch to another mobile operator due to hassle/cost of going to another similar setup, or losing benefits 1 and 2.

The other way to do this 'fixed-mobile convergence' (FMC) is called femtocells - rather than using WiFi, use a 3G mini-basestation (known as a femtocell), so that you can choose any 3G phone, not just the WiFi Dual-Mode Handsets (DMH) which have poorer battery life and are much less common. So you can get exactly the handset you want, probably at lower cost and with longer battery life. Sprint is doing similar things with its data-oriented 4G/WiMax service, according to http://lightreading.com/

The QoS (latency, jitter, bandwidth and packet loss) for your broadband may well affect voice calls, just like true VoIP - if someone does a big download, you may find call quality suffers or call is dropped. The world *really* needs Packeteer-style TCP rate shaping (and generic DiffServ type IP QoS) in the broadband router, and ideally in the broadband network - but that gets into the whole net neutrality issue, as the mobile operator would need to pay broadband telco to do this...

Caveat: I'm not a UMA/GSM expert, so the detailed architecture comments may need some clarification/correction, but I believe they are correct.

and Hong Kong has 1000Mbps to the home... 3 years ago

http://www.lightreading.com/document.asp?doc_id=63 067

In the face of a patent infringement lawsuit from Sprint, they might just sell themselves to the company instead. The anticipated timing of such an announcement? April 24, when the hearing on the stay is set to occur. The slide in stock price definitely makes Vonage an attractive target for acquisition just for the customer base and Sprint has deep pockets to duke this thing out with.

I couldn't disagree more with the choice of BT as the leading company because of its 21CN network. As such it is in interesting choice of BT to go to Ethernet IP for its entire network. There are at least two other incumbents who are doing the same thing. KPN has a project called ALL-IP and and Telstra has a project called the Common Network.

However KPN is doing something more than just changing the backbone. KPN will roll-out VDSL2+ to the end-users as well. This will all be Ethernet/IP based for the backhaul and VDSL2+ for the last 450 meters, allowing 50/20mbit down/up. KPN will close 1350 swithch locations and roll out 28000 street cabinets to deliver the speeds to the end-user.
http://www.kpn.com/upload/1215076_9475_11328305981 77-1212162_9475_1132326712652-Op_weg_naar_All-IP_1 81105.pdf
http://www.lightreading.com/document.asp?doc_id=69 419&print=true
(the lightreading article forgets the vdsl2+ bit, see presentation for that)

In contrast BT will only do ADSL in its network, they will not reach speeds above 24 mbit and in response to a question on access networks he says, that it is very hard to understand what a user will want to do with more than 24mbit. (hereby forgetting that most of the UK will not be living close enough to a dslam to actually get this 24mbit). He doesn't see a reason for fiber to the home or any other kind of access networks. This was said by its Chairman Ben Verwaayen at a recent Ofcom Event on convergence. http://www.ofcom.org.uk/event/presentations/sessio n6 (minute 25 and onwards)

They don't use Sun.
" the rendering system, which is based on Dell servers, "

http://www.lightreading.com/document.asp?doc_id=92 075

At some point massive data centers won't provide incremental benefits unless the massive increases in processing power are met with proportional decreases in bandwidth prices. Sure, bandwidth prices have dropped, but not by nearly the rate of price/teraflop processing has. Companies like Google recognize this, and are investing in their own fiber to compensate. But the telecommuncations companies are the ones that originally build these lines, and it's unfortunately in their best interest to keep the supply of spare bandwidth very low.

A method for providing integrated voice, video, and data content in an integrated service offering to one or more customer premises includes receiving television programming from a programming source, receiving data from a data network, and receiving telephone communications from a telephone network.

They have been laying or selling off in their telecom chip business since June.

Reference

"Is Google planning to build a global fiber-optic network from scratch? And, if so, why?"

http://news.com.com/Google+wants+dark+fiber/2100-1 034_3-5537392.html

"Granted, when you operate an Internet company with Google's size, reach, and product portfolio, it's a no-brainer that lots and lots of bandwidth is required."

http://www.lightreading.com/document.asp?site=ligh treading&doc_id=65454

http://www.lightreading.com/document.asp?doc_id=86 268&WT.svl=news2_1

http://www.lightreading.com/document.asp?doc_id=86 214&WT.svl=news2_1

Current speeds might be good enough for many of today's applications because today's applications have to be built around today's bandwidth limitations. Streaming HD video isn't possible today, but make the pipe big enough and it could be. You could have a whole new set of cable TV providers that offer service exclusively over the internet. Just connect a set top box to your router, and you're ready to go. What if it took only minutes to download full length full resolution movies off of iTunes? How long would Netflix and Blockbuster last? Don't think it's going to happen? Take a look at GPON. 2.5 gig down and 1.25 gig up could open up a host of new services that were never possible before.

Black Gold, Texas Tea. Second time in an hour I've seen this term as it relates to a technology company. The first was an optical networking company that is getting into Oil and Gas.

...works over the long term, not the short term.

This article seems to me to be at least tangentially related, insofar as it says something about the guys calling the shots in Helsinki.

The second major use would be chip-to-chip interconnect. However, this becomes a challenge, as you try to keep a ribbon of fiber-optics (think 200-2000 strands) perfectly lined up with the lasers on the die. I'm not saying it can't be done, but it is one of the hurdles to face before it could be used that way in mass-produced systems like a PC. The theory goes that at about 1 foot per second, electrical propagation between chips is causing us lots of headaches. HyperTransport and other technologies make some advances to get around the plain limits, but there are still major problems with sending high-speed signals on circuit boards. Even if this can't help speed up absolute memory access time, it could help to improve throughput between memory and the processor, helping to avoid some of the single-threaded bottlenecks that led IBM and its partners to develop Cell