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May be the whole idea of unlimited access was never realistic...

Okay, forget "unlimited access".

I'd settle at this point for broadband speeds that match Japan, or South Korea, or Finland, or France, or the Netherlands, or Portugal, or Norway, or Poland, or Canada (for those of you who claim the U.S. is too big for good broadband), or Austria, or Belgium, or Iceland, or ...

The U.S. is also beaten in price by 10 other nations, Japan pays one quarter what we do on average.

If you want DSL or fiber how about you pay for the lines to be run

The American people already paid for a nation wide broadband network that was never delivered.

Please don't act like it is just those up on a mountain that can't get broadband. My mom is less than 3 minutes away from a town of 15,000, and can see both the cable and DSL junctions from her back door. Will they run it the block and a half to their house? Nope! In fact here in AR there are plenty of towns where the cable nor the DSL has not moved a single inch in close to a quarter century. Why? Because both Cox and AT&T has "cherry picked" all the nice neighborhoods and refuse to give a shit about anyone else, that's why. The black section of town? No cable, really shitty DSL. The lower end housing districts? No cable, no DSL.

So PLEASE don't act like it is just some poor bastard on a mountain in Montana that can't get broadband. Thanks to the duopolies and cherry picking last time I lived there there was parts of downtown Nashville that had no cable or DSL! The duopolies and allowing them to list a zip code as "covered" even if they only offer it to a single house have left many that are not in large cities with nothing but the short end of the stick. Came down to the south sometime, and see how many decently sized towns have jack squat thanks to the duopolies not caring past cherry picking.

We are gonna have to take back the last mile and open it up to competition if things are ever gonna change. Want a monopoly? We will give you x number of years in any area you run fiber to the neighborhood to, and will add x years for adding fiber to the door. After all we already paid for nationwide broadband once already, and all we got for that was the finger. Either they pay us back with interest or we take the whole thing. Otherwise I predict this will be another taxpayer handout to the megacorps, who will blow smoke and then not do jack shit.

Because you'll find that the "service" from someone like Netzero suddenly drops in quality from a shitty 14-28k on the local "FU" ISP to a completely useless 4-8k on something like netzero, at least around here. They also gouge you more if you don't join for one of their "bundles" so that by the time they are done tacking on fees it'll cost you damned near as much for basic phone + Netzero as it did for phone + dial up.

Sadly the local teleco/cableco duopoly has such a stranglehold they can pretty much screw you raw and you just have to take it. They have raised basic cable+phone+Internet to over $150+ bucks a month, and no ala carte option, because they know your choice is that or the falling apart DSL lines where you are looking at a max 512k if you are lucky. Most of my customers on DSL are looking at 256k for $50 a month, and by the time they figure in the phone charges you are looking at $110.

So sadly I fear that without the government seizing the last mile things will only get worse. The prices keep climbing, the service gets nothing but shittier, and with prices that high the poor can't afford any service at all. Considering we already paid 200 Billion, yes with a B, and got nothing but the finger in return, I say we should give them 90 days to either give us what we paid for, give us back the money WITH interest, or we seize the last mile. If they want a monopoly they will get x number of years for every person they bring fiber to the neighborhood to that isn't being served, and x+y for everyone they give fiber to the door to that isn't already served.

Because otherwise we are going to have way too many places like my local area, where they have gotten together and cherry picked all the choice neighborhoods and everyone else can pay $130 for dial up or suck it. Considering how much the Internet can help the poor by giving them access to information and free classes this is frankly highway robbery the way they are screwing so many. Of course expecting our greedy congress critters to do anything more than line their pockets is like pissing in the wind, so we will just fall farther and farther behind thanks to our "free market" ideals.

Oh poor little bankers and telcom monopolists, cry me a river because they might be expected to do the public a service and keep their word. We can only imagine what the world would look like if $23 trillion dollars were spent on education, parks, housing, medicine, and reasonable regulation of the predatory industries that have left the US fat, cancer prone, broke and ignorant. Telco companies are in a position to refuse this money and it is in their best interest to leave customers paying per byte of third world service. It is in every one else's best interest to regulate the piss out of these theives.

It is instructive to study what happened to the last broadband stimulus. Had these vultures carried through with their promisses, the US would already have the best network service in the world. Instead, they pocketed the $200 billion dollars that we all gave them and have done trillions of dollars in damages to the US economy. The tide was so turned in the 90's, that by the time the Clinton administration was over, the US government was overseeing corrupt auctions of spectrum for cell phones to the highest bidder. Yes, we now have cheap, 3rd world grade cell phone service as well as copper lines but we could have had much more. The greedy people responsible for this fraud deserve jailtime, not more money.

The public has a right to regulate these companies because they make use of public assets. You own public servitude and the public should put it's regulatory foot down on the Bells with it. More importantly, we own the spectrum which can and should be liberated. All of our communications goals can be met this way. Let the telcos refuse the money, we don't need them.

Is 0% too much savings?

http://www.saschameinrath.com/2008/sep/08/united_states_personal_savings_rate_freaks_me_out
http://www.bankrate.com/brm/news/sav/20060308a1.asp

Spend spend spend. Wealth is not spending. Cheap debt and depressed savings interest rates cause malinvestment, ruin market insight from cost-benefit analysis, and ultimately result in the formation of economic bubbles.

P.P.S.

Even your cable television will be "blocked" by white-space devices. Quote:

"The National Cable & Telecommunications Association filed lengthy comments with the FCC on September 10, concluding that "unlicensed TV band devices, as currently proposed, will interfere with cable service." Not only can home cable wiring be subject to direct pickup (DPU) interference, but local cable offices around the country could find their high-gain local antennas affected (which could mess up local TV channels served to all cable subscribers in the area)."

"Every time a consumer in a single family home uses a personal/portable TV band device as currently proposed, its signal output will interfere with cable services. For example, a family member using a TV band device in one room for home networking could foreclose another family member from watching a particular TV channel in another room. The affected channel would go blank or be seriously degraded."

"The problem could get even worse in apartment buildings, and the group points out that even Ed Thomas has conceded that the issue "needs to be looked at"...... the group would like to see unlicensed white space devices limited to 10mW, or one-tenth the amount of power that white space backers want to use. As for headends, NCTA wants to use the geolocation database to clear a swath of space around them that would be free of white space devices."

Source: http://www.saschameinrath.com/2008/sep/24/ars_technica_covers_white_space_device_debate

Vista doesn't stop me from watching anything, or burning dvd copies for that matter.

I don't have personal experiences with it as I switched completely to Linux long ago. However, there are numerous examples on the web:

A good technical overview of the stuff your computer is doing *other* than what you want it to do: http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_cost.html

A real-world example of that stuff hurting a real user: http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/01/03/2339248

Vista DRM breaking apple content: http://www.saschameinrath.com/2007feb04windows_vista_drm_turning_ipods_into_doorstops_since_2007

A quick google for "vista drm" will show many more.

I'm glad you haven't yet run into problems and its true that some users never will. However, Vista is still using your hardware to watch what you do at the expense of using that hardware for what you are trying to do. Even if you never run into a file you can't play, the cost to you in efficiency or in monetary terms is far above zero.

The price you paid for Vista included the cost of developing the DRM schemes that are only used to limit you. The ram and cpu Vista uses enforcing those schemes is ram and cpu that you could be using to do a useful task.

Its sort of like your neighbor stealing your bandwidth via wifi.You may not notice that you aren't getting your full bandwidth, but that doesn't mean it isn't making you wait a few seconds longer for that download, or get a little more lag playing the latest and greatest game. In this case, your nosy neighbor is watching everything you do so they can stop you if you do anything they don't like - and you are paying them for the privilege.

http://videolectures.net/kiblix07_meinrath_wtrr/

There is also a very interesting part on White Space Devices, basically radio devices that would use any available frequency in order to communicate and release that frequency and hop onto another one immediately if the detect someone else transmitting on it. They have presented this to the FCC for the test, which of course was extremely unfair (out of specs) and the technology refused. Some more on his site http://www.saschameinrath.com/.

In essence Sprint is just a reseller of at&ts' product. Let them come out with their own product to compete.

AT&T got all kinds of subsidies and grants of right-of-way to build their infrastructure. The theory was that this was in exchange for access.

Old news
... and even older

Old news
... and even older

US successful "free market"

Don't try to rationalize our shitty connections. There is NO excuse for it. Take a look at Japan for example: Average $41.00 for a 100Mbps/85Mbps line.

For the same price you are paying for your pathetic DSL line, you could have a line that is ~67 times faster download and ~250 times faster upload in Japan. It is much the same in other parts of the world. The state of ISP service in the US IS pitiful and you SHOULD be angry.

In March 2005, the FCC ruled to open up a new swath of the Public Airwaves (in the 3650-3700 MHz range) for use by Community Wireless Networks, neighborhood organizations, independent ISPs, schools, churches, and anyone else who wanted to create wireless broadband systems.

But now, a coalition of major corporations is fighting to keep this spectrum for themselves -- they want the FCC to reopen the 3650-3700MHz proceedings and get the FCC to overturn its previous decision.

Until August 11, 2005 you can file comments opposing the reopening of the 3650-3700MHz proceedings and stop this pillaging in its tracks.

Here's how you can help save the Public Airwaves in under 5 minutes:

A. Point your browser to http://gullfoss2.fcc.gov/prod/ecfs/upload_v2.cgi

B. Enter "04-151" (without the quotes) as the Proceeding in item one.

C. Select "Reply to Petition for Reconsideration" as the Document Type for item 12 and fill out the rest of the form.

D. Type in your comment in the "Send a Brief Comment to FCC" blue text box towards the bottom of the webpage.

Not sure what to write? All you need is a few sentences or a paragraph identifying yourself and/or your organization and why you think keeping the 3650-3700MHz band open is a good idea -- e.g., it supports equitable access to broadband connectivity, spurs innovation, helps lower infrastructure costs (and thus consumer prices), lessens congestion in urban areas, helps connect rural areas, creates new markets for hardware, etc. etc. etc. Feel free to also thank the FCC for opening up the spectrum in the first place (and always be nice) -- don't forget, FCC staffers are people too.

If scores of people and organizations write in, the FCC will listen. Please take 5 minutes right now to help forge national telecommunications policy in the public interest.

In March, the FCC opened up the 3650 to 3700 MHz band of spectrum for use by an unlimited number of licensees throughout the country, with an easy online application process, no eligibility restrictions or costs to speak of, and with all licensees having a mutual obligation to cooperate and avoid harmful interference to each other. That band is currently used for Fixed Satellite Stations and exclusion zones around their facilities (see page 66) would prevent usage nearby, but most of the U.S. could benefit from new widespread competion to provide faster, cheaper wireless broadband.

However, recently nine petitions were filed asking the FCC to reconsider its decision and impose severe restrictions on who can use the spectrum, e.g., Motorola is requesting that all 50 MHz be divided into two blocks with each auctioned off to the highest bidder and Intel requested the same for major metropolitan areas. What do you think: open it or auction it?

Those who'd like to add their opinions to the previous set of comments, perhaps thanking the FCC for opening up the spectrum and opposing its sale at auction to just a pair of exclusive license holders in each area can file a comment by entering 04-151 in the proceeding number here and selecting Reply to Petition for Reconsideration in the drop down box at the bottom. Deadline this week, Thursday Aug 11. Even just a sentence or two of input can be helpful...