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My previous ISP (also in Europe) has been promising IPv6 for the last 5 years, but delayed IPv6 rollout year after year. Since UPC has recently been bought by Ziggo, IPv6 is not to be expected for the next 5 years as well. My current ISP (again, in Europe) is the only ISP that can give me more than 2MBit at my location, and I believe they haven't even heard of IPv6 yet.

Luckily, I got myself a free IPv6 tunnel.

There are some major differences between all those shared resources you list, and those of ISP's though:

1. With ISP's, you pay for different speeds. If you pay for (say) 1000kb/s but it is known in advance that you will only ever receive 333kb/s, that effectively means they have just raised their prices by a factor three.

2. Rather than giving everyone _at least_ one third of their paid-for speed, and then spreading the remainder evenly over the various customers, you are simply capped. In fact I suspect that even that promised one third of the paid-for speed is on an "if available" basis.

3. The phrase "abuse" is thrown around lightly, and there is a clear undertone of "illegal". These are probably the kind of people downloading illegal movies and childpr0n all day long! Cap them, before they do even more harm! Or... Maybe they have subscribed to a legal movie download service? One that competes with UPC's own TV offerings? (UPC is actually a cable TV provider, that also does internet on the side!)

Simple fact: UPC is advertising certain speeds, but not delivering them. And it's not even because of oversubscription (as in the examples you gave), but simply because they don't want to.

Compared to the US, I guess we're doing better, but these are my options as I currently see them in Amsterdam.

Everytime I change ISPs, it is to get more bandwidth for less cost. I'm just finishing a ADSL 2 year contract with Tele2 and was seriously considering UPC. Still am, but this news sucks. UPC also has extraordinarily bad customer service. Bad in a legendary way.

There are loads of ADSL ISPs offering 20mb down/ 1up, with phone & TV for 30 euros a month. UPC uses the city coax network and DOCSIS 3.0 I think, (claiming fiber, which is true i guess considering their backbone, but still). I was thinking of buying 60mb down/ 6up with TV and phone for 50 euros a month until this news. There is no other ISP using the higher bandwidth coax. Local ADSL seems to have peaked at 20 mbs down.

These lengthy contracts and the commitment DOES suck. At least once the 1-2 year period is over, it is possible to quit with a month or so notice.

FWIW, XS4all tries to compete based on privacy and is fairly libertarian regarding internet issues, but the price is also much higher. Since I'm mostly talking to our own servers, I'd rather buy internet in bulk.

http://se.tele2.nl/
http://www.upc.nl/totaalpakketten/
http://www.xs4all.nl/allediensten/toegang/adslbellen/ (note they 'give free' mobile internet for a year, then you gotta pay for that 2nd service, ouch!)

I really want more bandwidth upstream than 1mbs, but I really dislike UPC. I would really like to know if SSH is being throttled, the article isn't entirely clear about this.

My employer is located three blocks from my house and has air conditioning (ahhhh!) and an underutilized T1 circuit, so I just go there.

Maybe people are going to coffee shops so they don't have to be constrained by a T1. In an era when we can pay $100/month for a connection 80 times faster than a T1, it's hard to go back.

I do use Debian stable, though. Do I get cool points for that?

Nope, sorry, I use it too, and I'm definitely not cool.

Mainly for time shifting. I live in Amsterdam in The Netherlands. These are the 30+ basic channels we have here. There is also a Digital add-on system with some more channels.

I want my PVR to record every single one of the programs of certain types, such as movies, music shows, scientific, etc. Members of my family will have their own preferences. So that we can watch them even a few days later. Each type will have it's own percentage of (FIFO) harddisk-space, etc.

Practically speaking I think 4 channels could be the minimum, if a human would decide what (and what not) to record. But I want that automated, so this system will record a lot that will never be viewed at all. The modular approach makes it scaleable.

Mainly for time shifting. I live in Amsterdam in The Netherlands. These are the 30+ basic channels we have here. There is also a Digital add-on system with some more channels.

I want my PVR to record every single one of the programs of certain types, such as movies, music shows, scientific, etc. Members of my family will have their own preferences. So that we can watch them even a few days later. Each type will have it's own percentage of (FIFO) harddisk-space, etc.

Practically speaking I think 4 channels could be the minimum, if a human would decide what (and what not) to record. But I want that automated, so this system will record a lot that will never be viewed at all. The modular approach makes it scaleable.

I guess you work for Wanadoo?

There is also another big example of bad managment in this sector in Holland: UPC. This company bought many small cable networks in The Netherlands, some which were of very good quality, like A2000. In has now grown into a monstruous orginization where all quality and service has gone into thin air... Worst off all, it may go bankrupt taking with it all those small previously well functioning networks :(