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AOL Picks Cable ISP Partners
You may recall that when AOL and Time-Warner were permitted to merge, a few conditions were placed by the FTC. One of them is that AOL must permit a few other ISPs to offer service over all of the cable modems owned by Time-Warner. AOL lied to the regulators and said that "technical difficulties" prevented them from permitting open competition among any ISP that wanted to offer service; instead AOL will carefully choose a grand total of three other ISPs to offer service. Well, they've put in the paperwork - Earthlink, Juno, and High Speed Access Corporation. AOL is of course the nation's largest ISP; Earthlink is second; Juno is third; HSA is another huge cable modem company. AOL has financial dealings with all three - that is, they're already in bed together, partners, not competitors. You can guess that they're going to be competing *wink*wink* fiercely *wink*wink* to offer you the best price {snicker}.
Earlier this year, MSN surpassed Earthlink as #2 by reaching 5.4 million customers and continues to grow. All this talk of competition and AOL does not strike a deal with their closest competitor, Microsoft. Is it hard feelings about AOL IM or just industry standard practice of selective competition?
-David
The Consent Decree allows this to happen as soon as AOLTW and Earthlink are ready to go forward, which we expect to be ROTFLOAO, when hell freezes over.
Um, hate to break the news to you, but by the end of the year Apple will be the single largest vendor of a UNIX-based operating system, shipping more copies than RedHat or Sun. I'm not sure how the numbers work out when you take free downloads into account, but I'm pretty sure it's still in Apple's favor.
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$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
Which means that AOL was in fact correct in claiming that they could not open up their service to unlimited other ISPs, but only a certain number, and it was michael, not AOL, telling the untruths...
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
The problem is that a pair of channels (one up, one down) is needed for each ISP, to keep their networks from interfering with each other. As there are not an unlimited number of channels, AOL cannot allow an unlimited number of ISPs to use the network. The situation with DSL is much simpler, and does not have these problems.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Obviously the real mission statement of the OpenNet coalition is "Open my competitors' net, let me in, close it behind me".
We had contacted Time Warner when the terms of the merger were being dicussed with the FTC. Time Warner said it was anxious to let independent ISPs (even small ones like ours) onto it's cable networks.
We were being offered some interesting opportunities. We'd effectively be allowed to sell bandwidth over TWNYC's RoadRunner and market to the entire NYC area. Since ADSL is pretty shitty, we would have been glad to offer NYCT.NET brand cable to our customers.
If I'm clued in correctly, Time Warner stopped returning our calls once the merger was complete.
I'm still wondering how they are implementing this competetive access.
Is there anybody using the network in Columbus (trial area) that cares to comment???
EarthLink has always positioned itself as the clear alternative to AOL by always offering far superior services at lower prices than AOL, may it be dialup, broadband or wireless, if that's not competition, I don't know what is!
Now just because AOL is looking to strike a financial deal with EarthLink and other ISP's to share pipelines doesn't mean any of this is going to stop. There are tremendous costs associated with sharing cable lines due to the fact that they cannot be abstracted into various layers like dialup and DSL and this forces all parties in the game to financially cooperate at some level so those costs are fairly spread out. That's what I believe those deals are all about.
But in the end the competition will still remain fierce and AOL will have to be on its toes, especially since EarthLink has been *extremely* aggressive in the broadband market, offering a far wider array of broadband and mobile connectivity options than any other ISP out there: Case in point ...
Extraordinary Vacations. Exceptional Prices
Extraordinary Vacations. Exceptional Prices
People gotta understand that being in the ISP business is *very*, *VERY* expensive and it's extremely hard to survive in it.
Soon internet access will be just like any other "utility" in your home. But unlike local phone and long distance service, or electricity or water, activating "internet service" and maintaining it for the average user is far more complicated than flipping a few switches. You can't just tell non-internet-savvy users "OK, we activated your internet dialup or broadband account, you're ready to go". As an ISP, and to provide the best "internet experience" possible to the user, you have to provide the average user with very compelling software that supports a wide array of hardware platforms and operating systems to connect a user's computer to the internet. But that often doesn't go smoothely so you have to have a staff of highly trained technical support. Even when the average user gets connected, a lot of them don't know what to do on "this internet thingy", so again you need technical support to hold their hand so they value your service and continue using it. Even if the user encounters problems that are not the ISP's fault, most users only see that they can't open their browser and "YOU NEED TO FIX IT NOW!".'
The bottom line is, being an emerging ISP means survival in a very harsh business, filled with frustrations and miscommunications, where ISP's often have to compensate for the weaknesses of operating systems and mainstream internet software with their own technical support and custom-built software. To be a successful ISP that doesn't just cater to "elite users", your organization must be extremely proficient in an wide array of disciplines and all that comes at a cost of hard-earned lessons, experience and ... MONEY.
Now you're talking about "Open Source" internet access by setting up Wireless LAN's everywhere? Hey I'm all for that and I'll be first to join. You still will *never* connect the average user. And if you're basing yourself off of the 802.11b standard you're opening another huge can of worms on privacy and internet security. Make sure you think it through.
Offering internet access to the masses is far from being all about picking with which network standards users will connect. You can write compelling open-source software at the only cost of your time and grey-matter then distribute it to the rest of the community so more programmers can enhance it, but offering internet service to the masses will cost you a whole lot more than that.
It is not all about technology.
Extraordinary Vacations. Exceptional Prices
I think the barrier here is the astronomical start-up cost of laying new cable. That's one of the reasons why DSL companies have to rent space from Verizon et al instead of running their own loops.
Cheers,
Perrin.
-Perrin.
Now I want you to go in that bag and find my lightsaber. It's the one that says bad mother-fscker on it.
If you look at the cost breakdown of a multi-company service, you'll find that the carrier makes the bulk of the money. I have DSL at home, and I found that of the $50 per month that I pay, the carrier (Verizon) gets $35 of it, and my ISP (Acecape, who I highly recommend) gets the other $15.
AOLTW really has nothing to worry about here -- if anything, it means they get a good sized chunk of lucrative wholesale business. And they picked a good bunch of partners -- companies like Earthlink pride themselves on providing little more than raw connectivity: a market segment which has very little intersection with AOL's customer base. The typical AOL customer is unsophisticated and wants to have his/her hand held through the entire online experience.
Possibly most important of all is that this arrangement conveniently excludes Microsoft from the picture. MSN is the biggest threat to AOL right now, and since AOL is one of the few companies left that can hold its own against Microsoft, seeing them remain strong is vital to the industry, whether you use/like their services or not.
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Tired of FB/Google censorship? Visit UNCENSORED!
So, genius, where do I sign up for the alternative cable modem ISP provider? Guess what, there isn't one.
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Competitors should build their own networks, such as 100Mbit or 1Gbit Ethernet-to-the-home, and leapfrog the cable monopolies. If there are any government regs preventing them from building the plant, which governments often grant in exchange for a cut of the take--er, "franchise fees", attack those!
Finally a voice of reason. The FTC shouldn't be telling AOL how to run its business. Besides, the government is the biggest monopoly around-how come nobody is calling for its breakup?
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...They are certainly correct in that opening their network is not anywhere as simple as the Telcos and DSL people. For telcos and the DSL providers, they have a very distinct Layer 2 vs Layer 3 division here. The link from the End-User to the local CO is a point-to-point link; that is, unshared. The ISP can then tap into the data stream at one of several points (the closest being the local CO, the farthest being a long-distance backhaul). The bottom line here is that DSL/T1/T3 connections can all be made at the Layer 2 level, with no consideration for IP numbering. That makes it easy for ISPs to compete, since they bear the cost for all layer 3 equipment, and can differentiate their products that way.
With cable modems, however, the medium is shared. The best (albeit a inadequate one) analogy is that every cable modem is a workstation on a old thinnet (10Base5) ethernet network, with IP information assigned via bootp. While it is possible to have multiple IP ranges assigned on a local neighborhood loop, it can get real messy real fast. Also, a large amount of the Layer 3 hardware will be (and realistically, should be) provided by AOL, so they bear a large amount of costs that would otherwise be done by the ISPs. Thus, it's far harder to differentiate one ISP from another.
It's possible, and I definitely think we really need to make sure that cable providers compensate the public for their locally-granted monopolies, but it's not anywhere as simple as with the telcos.
-Erik
There are always four sides to every story: your side, their side, the truth, and what really happened.
heh.
Sucks to be them... UOL.com is owned by a well-known south-american ISP, and Unitedonline.com is owned by United Airlines.
There goes any intuitive/impulse recognition...
The fact that I have a broad (haha) choice of ISPs to use with my DSL circuit and that I can choose one with a sane TOS which will allow me to run the services I want is worth the slight price difference and the potential of having a slightly slower connection in real world situations.
If I want to, I can choose an ISP that treats me like I am an important customer, rather than having to go through AOL/TW's call centers. This is worth a lot to me.
-B
What would be OK with me would be if the FTC hadn't limited it to three, but let any ISP that wanted in to compete, just like the situation with the DSL providers today. Each ISP would of course be responsible for their own costs of equipment/leases/whatever.
If that were to happen, I would seriously consider cable over DSL. The main objection I have to cable these days is the less-than-favorable TOS that AOS/TW has.
-BLooks like they avoided that possible problem by scanning a paper version of the text. So a 42 page black and white text pdf is over 2.5 MB. Argh! At least they could have OCRed it.
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I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations
And I'd be a Libertarian, if they weren't all a bunch of tax-dodging professional whiners.
Berke Breathed
"Can you say 'Wireless'?" Uhh, sure. But how is wireless going to save the world from ISP monopolies? You don't actually believe that the wireless industry is some Open-Source (huh?) paradise do you? If anything, the wireless industry is just as bad as the ISP industry, especially if you live in a semi-rural area.
Too bad that there is no competiton in the cable market. You use the cable provider that serves the area you live in. The only way you can choose a different provider is by moving, not a simple and easy thing to do.
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"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
True, I could go for dish service. But, I like having the clear local channels, which weren't available until very recently through the sattelite providers here. Plus, I REALLY like my cable modem (@HOME). On a good day, from a good server, I can get 350kBps plus, coming close to double a T-1. Downloading a full kernel tarball in under a minute is nice.
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"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
You know what gets me is when the FTC put basic restrictions on them when they merged that clearly states this corporation is so big and has so much control it must be regulated.
Problem with that is they are merged forever. What happens when new technologies come along that they can totally leverage to there advantage. FTC won't be able to do squat other than antitrust suits which take forever.
Merger should never have been allowed. The FTC's restrictions are an insult to the publics intelligence.
I don't see this as being a permanent situation. First of all, you really do have the option of going with a dish. Second, competition with satellite TV (and other factors) have lead to the construction of much more flexible and capable digital cable systems. These days, this only means that you get the ability to fork over an absurd amount of money to EvilCable Inc. for "digital service", but down the line, I expect that people will realize that they can (and should) expect such a system to support multiple providers over a single cable.
Until then, just don't watch TV. It's not like there's much of anything *good* on these days...
Babar
Probably true on the "who is sharing files" part, but not really true on the "blind eye" part. I know that here at Mizzou they do not really care who *downloads* files, but that they certainly do everything they can to prevent people from sharing and/or serving other files (e.g., napster; note that they do packet analysis to defeat this, not just silly port-blocking). And the reason for that isn't (really) just to be killjoys, but because *before* they did this, almost all of the available bandwidth going off campus was used for this kind of thing, and it really just isn't the mission of the university.
Babar
it's not illegal to have a monopoly. If you remember there used to be no choice in local phone service and cable TV, but the prices were still reasonable. A monopoly only becomes a problem when the company exploits it. For instance, Microsoft became an illegal monopoly when it tied its monopoly product (the OS) with a new, competing product (the browser) in order to give it an incredibly unfair advantage.
As long as AOL behaves (stop laughing in the back please!) they can have a monopoly and it's legal.
There are a whole bunch of other routers out there. Cisco just makes the best ones and has the best customer service. As good textbook capitalism predicts, they completely dominate the market.
-B
the petition.
The annoying part is that the petition is redacted. When did this stuff become state secrets? Telling us when AOL will roll out Earthlink will blow the whole multibillion dollar empire? Ughh.
Never meant half of the things I said to you. So you know, there's a half that might be true - G. Phillips
More importantly, will any of them offer static IPs and a decent upstream? My DSL is bound to drop out from under me sooner or later, and if I wanna keep hosting my site/ftp/etc I'm gonna need these things...
To be more precise, Road Runner has always been a separate entity than AOL Time Warner; they license the animated characters
OK, I haven't checked out the numbers for Cable, but I provision DSL for a living, and your numbers are WAY out of whack.. As a note, I have a cable modem at home, and the best I can get is 1.8Mbps.
DSL bandwidths are typically in the range of 144kbps-1.5Mbs
All the gear that I've used (Paradyne, Cisco, and 3COM) goes from 512Kbps to 8Mbps, depending on distance to the CO. That's quite a difference from your numbers. We only do business accounts (no bandwidth cap), but the local telco here caps "residential" accounts at 4Mbps.
I realize that you're just making a generalization (and that you know that it's a generalization,) but I've never seen DSL gear that has a max. speed of 1.5Mbps; Can you tell me which equipment you're quoting?
Why don't we just sic ole Ted on these bastards and blow some of them straight to hell? On a more serious note, wasn't this kind of thing exactly what our country dealt with around the turn of the (last) century? Lee
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
aren't bigger corporations able to do more business, and thus have lower margins on each individual sale, and thus have the lowest prices of all?!
the pwesident says big corporations our are friends!
:(
...dave
Think different? I'd be happy if most people would just think...
he is a specimin of the type of vermin which bill gates is also a member..
greedius weaselium
;)
...dave
Think different? I'd be happy if most people would just think...
well, road runner == AOL/TimeWarner (warner bro's cartoons, roadrunner/coyote, get it?) so that's not much of a competition, is it? Anyway, @home is only in areas where rr.com isn't, so it's not much competiton at all.
luckily roadrunner is still pretty decent even after AOL took it over, so hopefully they'll keep the two seperate for a bit longer.
Oligopoly!
I'm South African. I've lived here my entire life ( 25 years ), and I can promise you that we have *never* had any cable service at all here. Not cable TV, and certainly not broadband Internet feeds.
There are a few dialup ISP's here ( WorldOnline, ABSA and M-Web to name a couple ). There are also a couple of satellite services. However, there is not one single cable company, and there never was one. We don't have any ADSL either.
I think you must be confusing South Africa with some other southern african country ( although I very much doubt that they had any cable providers either ).
Best Regards,
Peter Knowles
I run Comcast@home at home. On a regular night, I can't download faster than 252Kbps. On a rare occasion I'll hit 400-500Kbps. I can understand the 128Kbps upload cap. The network is clogged as it is and we don't need people trying to run large ftp or web sites to slow it down more.
Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
Our former national (shrug) phonecompany also makes this kinds of deal to "regulate" the market.
Hmm... my cable modem is capped at 2.0MB/s download. DSL is available at 1.5MB/s download. I would agree with you, if the difference were what it used to be (prior to the cap). It used to be closer to 6-7MB/s download. Since the cap, though, the difference seems pretty small to me.
With that small difference in speed, and due to restrictive appropriate use policies on the cable modem (i.e. no web/email servers allowed), I've been considering switching to DSL. I realize that it'll be slower, but not that much slower, and for the ability to legally run servers, it's something that makes me pause and consider.
The fact that I can make this switch, relatively easily, and say to the cable company that I don't appreciate their appropriate use policy, suggests to me at least that the TW doesn't have a monopoly in broadband services in my area. Am I wrong? Should I be concerned?
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Key to financial independence: Spend less than you earn. Save and invest the difference. Do it for a long time.
Now wait a minute here, you're slinging some FUD, too.
Yes cable is shared bandwidth between the end user and the cable company's equipment. And yes DSL is dedicated between the end user and the CO. But, all internet services make use of shared bandwidth . So if your DSL provider does not have enough bandwidth from it's provider, it will have exactly the same problems that you proclaim that only cable modem is susceptible to.
Now, I can't speak for every cable modem implementation. But I can speak about the implementation that I use. They have a total of 30Mb/s bandwidth dedicated to each hub, and a maximum of 500 houses per hub. If they achieve 25% sales of internet access, that's 125 houses sharing 30Mb/s of bandwidth. This is beyond the dreams of the cable company.
I have been monitoring my cable company's connection for over 3 years now by doing a download provided by the cable company every 30 minutes. Between me and the cable company I have never seen any slowdown of bandwidth at any time of the day at all. Now, I have seen slowdowns when connecting to the Internet, but never over the cable infrastructure.
This is just plain false. EVERYONE on the internet shares bandwidth. That's how it's built. You may not share the bandwidth with that person between you and the CO, but beyond the CO it's shared bandwidth. The only interesting question is whether or not there's enough bandwidth available for those who are sharing it.
I can prove, with data, that between my cable company and me, there's plenty of bandwidth. I can't prove, but it seems pretty obvious that the bandwidth that my cable company has purchased to get to the Internet is not enough. But switching to DSL does not necessarily fix that problem. In fact, it could make it worse.
My point: don't buy the hype that the telco's are putting out about cable infrastructure. If you want a great review of the basic differences check out this salon review. It's very good. And it supports the conclusion that the cable infrastructure is, generally speaking, better and faster than the DSL infrastructure.
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Key to financial independence: Spend less than you earn. Save and invest the difference. Do it for a long time.
I read a lot about the M$ trial. I read the findings of fact, the conclusions of law, and the decision on the appeal. Every page. One of the things that I learned is that in order for it to be a monopoly, a relevant market has to be defined. Also, in order to have a monopoly, there must be no easy way for a customer to switch from the monopolist's products or service.
Isn't it reasonable to define the relavant market for AOL Time Warner's cable stuff, as the broadband market? If true, then why aren't all the DSL providers already competitors? I currently have a Time Warner cable modem in my house, but I qualify for and can easily switch to DSL.
If this is true, is it really fair to say that AOLTW has a monopoly in broadband services?
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Key to financial independence: Spend less than you earn. Save and invest the difference. Do it for a long time.
10Mbps UP WITH @HOME?!
;p
Put down the crackpipe buddy and take a long step back. All @home providers cap uploads at 128Kbps, including comcast.. who, by the way, has one of the worst customer satisfaction ratings as far as broadband goes. But I digress. Roadrunner is also capped, I believe, but the majority of Time Warner cable modems cap at 384Kbps. I know, I have one. That 10Mbps number is just funny, no cable modem in existence even downloads at 10Mbps and the majority only reach 1.5Mbps download speed.
so there.
This is kind of off topic, but if you are looking at Southwestern Bell, I believe their DSL goes up to 6MB/s...
Mike.
--Ask a silly person, get a silly answer.
This is changing. I actually have a choice between two different cable TV / cable internet companies. The fact is that they are pretty similar in terms of pricing, services offered and horrible customer service but I do have a choice.
________________________
I don't want free as in beer. I just want free beer.
The answer to this, of course, was open-source Linux. Now who is MS's biggest competitor? If you read *any* tech news, you know that it sure as hell isn't Apple or IBM.
Are you sure about this? There are a lot of folks out there talking about Mac OS X, and how it's combination of an opensource (FreeBSD derived) belly and dPDF based interface are very impressive... Now let's imagine for a moment that the iMac2 (running IBM chips) arrives in three weeks and Apple throws a couple engineers at the OpenOffice project, a few more at DV apps (FC Pro, DVD Studio, DVD Player, etc. ), a few at audio apps, and what do you get... You get a pretty formidible challenger to MS..
You don't honestly think that Linux is the answer to MS in the business world at this point do you? ..
Sorry, I can't say anything against AOL, since:
+ AOL 0wnz Netscape;
+ Netscape pays for Mozilla;
+ Mozilla is the coolest open-source project ever. IMHO
all my base are belong to AOL/TimeWarner/Netscape/Mozilla/CNN.
That would actually make a pretty good Slashdot question:
How do you make your Windows box so unstable?
I have my issues with Windows, but my two Windows machines are only rebooted every two to three weeks whenever I do something really abusive, the power flickers or just feel like doing it for shits and grins, and god knows I beat the hell out of them by running a dozen different applications at once while installing and uninstalling apps left and right. It does damn near everything that I need an OS to do, and if the explorer shell allowed more customization rather than requiring a buggy substitute like LiteStep, the OS had scripting functionality on the order of the bash shell and support for real symbolic links rather than those shitty shortcuts, I'd probably migrate to borderline true believer. But then I have no time to spend on zealotry to my tools; I'm too damned busy using them. There are features of other OSes that I like (well, except MacOS; the year I spent as a typesetter working on Macs, or more accurately, clearing bomb icon windows and rebooting Macs, has caused me to vow to never use an Apple product again), but Windows just happens to have the greatest combination of features and software at this time for my needs.
Deosyne
My RoadRunner (Tampa Bay, Florida) is capable of (according to them) 768Kbps up and ~4Mbps down. From my own experience both of those numbers are pretty close to the truth, though I must admit it seems slow after being spoiled by a university line for so long.
Game... blouses.
I live in Sheffield. I live within the supposedly allowed distance of the exchange and ADSL still won't work.
BT told me my line was too noisy, then tried to get me to fork out for a higher quality line, with absolutely no guarantee that ADSL would work afterwards. It took them nearly six months to tell me that.
Who's your cable modem provider?
> I'm from the DSL company in your neighbourhood and can firmly assure you that we wil do whatever
> it takes to make sure that you NEVER get broadband. Come hell or high piss.
Yeah, you work for BT customer care don't you? I think I spoke to you a couple of times on the phone.
Just checked this out - service not available in my area - I'm about 2 miles from the centre of town. Great.
and just be grateful that you live in a country where you can get broadband access at all.
I live in the 5th or 6th (forget which) biggest city in britain, and I've been trying to get broadband, be it cable modem, DSL or whatever, for about a year. Still stuck with the 56k modem.
I'd *love* to pay slightly over the odds for a cable modem.
If there was anything wrong with monopolies, we could actually use Brand X routers. But we can't. There is only Cisco.
Got Rhinos?
Or, you could use something like freenet, such that something like 50k or so of a file was served from a single point. If youre downloading 50k from 1000 servers, it doesnt really matter if you can only up at 28k. Even at 10 Mb/s, maxing out your pipe, youre still only using 1.25k/s from each server.And reaqlly, when was the last time you maxed out your pipe? Given enoguh distributed computers, you can keep anything online, as long as you have any up capability whatsoever
You forget that most college kids are the ones providing the files to share, and most colleges turn a blind eye to such practices.
crack dealers have not formed a giant conglomerate that's pretty much immune to legal action
They have, its called the CIA.
illegitimii non ingravare
"however they really haven't screwed over the consumers..."
...
When I can't buy a good product at a good price because some asshole monopolist destroyed the good product / good price options and is leaving me with my only choice as a shitty product at a mediocre price
... well, as a consumer, I feel pretty screwed.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
Better to let AOL pick and give the government veto power. This way you don't sit in court for decades arguing over whether or not the 3 which were picked are fair to AOL. AOL picked them, now all that's left is for the governement to approve them, something which I feel they should do.
ok then your [sic] infringing on my copyright! Could you as [sic] me next time before STEALING my comments for your own?
Ok it's official: I've gotten tired of comments like the above where someone thinks there's something profound and revelatory about the notion that skepticism is a common practice amongst slashdot readers
I'm sorry that is was my post that broke the camel's back, so to speak.
It is well known that slashdot readers (at least the tiny subset that post) are generally skeptics. There's nothing prefound about that.
My post was directed at Michael's skepticism, the slashdot editor, not any particular slashdot readers.
I expect many slashdot readers to take skeptical and negative viewpoints, though there's often a good number of well reasoned posts, some skeptical, others optimistic. When I read user comments, I expect to see complaints that AOL chose some of its largest competitors for open access (aka whining). I even expect to see even more senseless reasoning, first posts, etc.
But, I expect slashdot editors, who post to a news site with very wide readership, to adhere to the same sort of editorial standards as major newspapers and magazines regularily do. The big difference between slashdot and conventional print media is that when they print sub-standard editorials, I can feel like I got what I paid for!
I suppose there also isn't anything profound about slashdot editors commonly being skeptical.
I'm sorry it was my post that annoyed you so much.
PJRC: Electronic Projects, 8051 Microcontroller Tools
No matter what three they pick, they're going to get slammed here on slashdot. It's a no-win situation (for a postive or even neutral editorial on slashdot). The only way they could make a slashdot editor happy would be to decide, purely out of good-will to allow more than the required three competitors... and since they're a publically held company, they'd have one hell of a time explaining that to their shareholders (who would rightly sue if AOL doesn't do what's in the shareholder's best interests profit-wise, that is).
Frankly, the fact that two of the largest ISPs are on the list is relatively good news. Had it been three tiny players without much presence, think of what this slashdot editorial would have said.... AOL picks non-starter competitors that they're just going to buy up as soon as the FTC isn't looking!
Sure, the FTC could have required more than three, but they didn't and that fact is old news. If you don't like these three, then I ask, what three could have made you happier?
PJRC: Electronic Projects, 8051 Microcontroller Tools
The more companies even if they are evil the better. I would rather have some form of competition. Microsoft has made a nice little blueprint for companies now emerging. AOL/Time Warner is one big ass company and if they control more than 50% of anything well I would not be happy. To much power in one hand is never good.
What, me worry?
I like road runner too when compared to an analog modem. When compared to comcast/@home, it's pathetic. Road runner caps my bandwidth at 1.5Mbps up, whereas I could get 10Mbps with @home. Also, road runner is not the most consistent service in the world. *shrug* Like I said, it's better than a 56k but nowhere near my old comcast speeds.
Get a fractional T1 since you ARE willing to pay more for your Hight speed bandwidth.
T1s are _supposed_ to be more reliable and you are garuanteed your bandwidth.
Problem solved.
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This
Isn't it a given that AOL will try to turn these terms to their advantage in _some_ way? Isn't that OK in a capitalist system? If so, stop your griping.
The 10Mbps fellow is clearly living in an alternate reality, no question, but you should know better than to write "All @home providers cap uploads at 128Kbps". Comments like that always come back to bite you in the ass.
:-)
I routinely get 400Kbps upload speeds with @home. Sorry.
There's a fairly amusing article about hacking together a long-range (up to 14km) broadband connection using 802.11b at The Pulpit.
It turns out that the trickiest part is not technical. It is buying the right telescope to let you see a house 10km away, then convincing the people in that house, whom you've discovered with your telescope, that you're not some crazy stalker, just a broadband-deprived net-addict willing to buy them dsl if they're willing to beam it to your house.
Funny and clever. (Of course, I don't know about the geography in your neck of the woods. Do you have line-of-sight to that town 8km away?)
I doubt anyone would come in to compete with the current cable company anyway. Look how much pressure the local government has keeping rates down.
It's really a case where the government gets to levy a 5% tax for little if any work.
Robert
--- If it's worth doing, it's worth doing in Perl!
Careful with that FUD you're slinging around there... Sure Cable has a higher peak bandwidth potential but neither you nor anyone else will ever actualize that potential...
Cable bandwidth is a shared resource, meaning that 10Mb/s is the most that can be flowing into or out of your neighborhood/apartment at one time. Furthermore, the bandwidth your modem can theoretically support is never the bandwidth your ISP will allocate to your area - typical individual cable connections are capped at around 500kb/s down and many are capped ridiculously low (in the order of 50kb/s) on the up side.
DSL bandwidths, although theoretically lower, are dedicated in the same way as T1 bandwidths are - you well never share that lower bandwidth potential with your neighbor the porn freak, or his friend the MP3 fanatic.
When you include all the facts, DSL does not come out 'inferior' to cable in price/performance at all.
Ultimately the evaluation has to be extended to include customer service and technical know-how of the provider - and in this case, cable providers almost universally suck. Many DSL offerings are equally bad, but at least they don't come from the cable provider's "we'll fix you when we're good and ready" mindset.
Besides... there are secret projects underway at the Bells to provide ubiquitous T1-type access over existing infrastructures, at relatively negligible costs (I can't substatiate this as I'm under NDA, so feel free to take it with a huge grain of salt) in the very near future.
"So on one hand, honey is an amazingly sophisticated and efficient food source. On the other hand it's bee backwash."
Maybe AOL can learn something?
Check out the Vinny the Vampire comic strip
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
If that goatse.cx picture was ever appropriate anywhere, this story would be the place. Hello consumer, open wide.
"Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart, he dreams himself your master."
It doesn't matter that more than one exists if you can't choose between them.
It dosen't take a rocket scientist to figure out that W. and crew won't do squat to pressure a large business to do anything pro-consumer. That would cost both of them money.
AOL/TW will be making money hand over fist up until the next election, at least, and probobly for years after that while the litigation chuggs through the courts. After which they will open up the market like they should have been required to do in the first place. Of course in the meantime a few extra billions (yes with a B!) won't hurt their stock price.
"I'm just here to regulate funkyness." - James Gandolfini, as Winston in The Mexican
That may sound a bit silly, but there is some truth to it. In over 95% of the places where cable is available, the local goverment has created, by law, a local monopoly through the franchise system. Basically, they authorize one and only one provider of cable service in a particular area. Im my case, its Time-Warner. Now why would a local government not allow others to come in and compete to offer service? Because they get a cut of the GROSS the cable company makes. Thats right, not the profit, but the gross. Again, in my case, its 5% right off the top. Its something like a mofia protection racket. The company pays 5% to the government, and the government insures that there won't be any pesky competition.
I can just see it now... all the quakeheads wind up with aol.com emails, and get automatically deleted from usenet. loopy. :)
my old sig used to be funny, but then slashcode ate it and now it's not funny anymore
Not All of @home Cox@home caps at 256kbs and 3mbs..
Ok, so these companies were previously involved with AOL. Ok, That doesn't mean something "evil" wouldn't happen after a company that wasn't previosly involved now suddenly had dealings with AOL especially with financial incentives, er, kickbacks. Any company that deals with AOL will be influenced by AOl, previously involved or not.
And it will continue to kick ass until they require everyone to use AOL. Hopefully that will never happen.
"Why do you consent to live in ignorance and fear?" - Bad Religion
Can someone point me to a site which ranks ISP's by size and gives subscriber size? (Thanks) Along a similar line, WSJ reports: http://interactive.wsj.com/articles/SB994285893652 451417.htm
Phone-Pole Ruling to Sway
Broadband Industry's Fate
Summary: The court will decide whether price caps on utility infrastructure will remain in place (literally a "pole" fee paid to phone companies by cable companies) ...
"If the high court rules for the utilities, large cable operators, such as AT&T Corp. or AOL Time Warner Inc., will be forced to pay much higher prices for attaching their wires to utility-owned poles."
Sorry, its a fee site. So I'm not going to violate WSJ copyright. ./ != naptster
the only thing I hope is that they won't make me use that crappy AOL software over my Cablemodem, cause Right now, its on a freesco box.
Personally I wish high speed internet was more expensive. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad that I don't have to pay too much, but the current low price seems to come with a low level of service. High speed internet is very important to me and I'd be willing to pay more if it meant better performance, uptime, and service. I think the low price is the reason why DSL and Cable Modems are penetrating the geography so slowly. Right now, I can't get high speed internet at any price where I live. That doesn't seem to make any sense. A block away, cable modems are ~$40. Where I am, I can't get DSL or Cable for $200+.
I dunno. Looks like some competition is shaping up. It's a shame that the point of the competition looks to be the determination of the greatest evil...
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
A lot of people have been raising the fact that it looks like we're heading for an 'ISP' Monopoly. We're at the point now with broadband service that we were with operating systems/platforms back in the early 80's. At the time, there were a few competitors such as DR. Dos, OS/2 (which many still cling to), Amiga, etc... for multimedia.
Windows and MacOS came out on top, and the Apple software largely because MS has been trying to avoide *looking* like they're abusing their monopoly powers all along.
The answer to this, of course, was open-source Linux. Now who is MS's biggest competitor? If you read *any* tech news, you know that it sure as hell isn't Apple or IBM.
Here in not too long we're going to be in the same boat with broadband ISP's. We've got 2 or 3 nationwide carriers and a doublehandful os smaller competitors that don't really stand a chance if the big guys decide to play rough. In ten years, I have no doubt we will be facing life with Cable and DSL monopolies. How do we combat this?
Can you say 'Wireless'?
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
U-O-L.com and united-online.com are registered too, but mostly empty.
Liberty in your lifetime
Just makes me thankful that in Sydney, Australia we have cable overbuild [both major cable companies Telstra (www.telstra.com) and Optus (www.optushome.com.au) covering the same area] which means we have a choice of whichever provider we possibly want and since DSL was introduced last year, it too features a selections of carriers allowing competetition and a better result for the end user with pricing, service and product. Long live the ACCC and TIO (Australian Competition and Consumer Commission and the Telecommunication Industry Ombudsman) who keep the industry fair for the consumer.
He who owns the lines, makes the money, lest no one forget that issue. This is the secret, everyone else can scramble around and act as though they can make a buck prviding this and that service, but in the "highway" business, its the highways that cost, and the highways that you pay for. If they (the service) make more money? Then you notice the service is more valuable, raise the rates and pay off the highway faster. Internet is not a public necessity as we all think it is, like sewer, water, and light. To front the billions necessary to spend on these things, there are only one sector of society that can pull it off... corporations. Its a sad world with bad practices flying about, but keeping them in check is a civic responsibility. It is actually the only way to do it. And corporations are no more evil than you are, they are exactly as self-serving as you and I are, which is utterly. Just gotta put a leash on those puppies.
There is absolutely no reason why AOL/TW couldn't do the same -- provide private circuit transport to the ISP.
The funny thing is, AOL used to be part of the OpenNet Coalition....
Old age and treachery almost always overcome youth and skill.
They are the only other large scale ISP that has no clue what it is doing...but don't get me started (http://www.verizoneatspoop.com)
http://monkeyserver.com --- weeeeee
GreyPoopon
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GreyPoopon
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Why is it I can write insightful comments but can't come up with a clever signature?
Microsoft and AOL aren't in this to promote the net, they're in it for the money. Fair enough - nothing wrong with that. If they hadn't shoved money into the pc market years ago, we'd all be using 286s. They've given so much to the PC community, but all anyone can ever do is complain about what they did 2 days ago.
And Windows is stable. It's very stable. I can run it indefinately on all the PCs I come into contact with, and without crashes. Where people get the idea that Windows crashes all the time is a mystery to me. I've been using it since before windows 3, and it's always been very stable. And I have developed on it extensively, and it's very resiliant.
I bet this gets modded as a troll because I'm not kneeling before the penguin...
Hmmm... i'm all for opening peoples eyes, however I do not believe in doing it for exploitation. Yeah sure they've opened peoples eyes, but for what purpose? To put blinders on them... so they can only see straight down the Microsoft/AOL path. Windows stable? That is foolish. I personally do not care who uses Linux. If I was the only person left in the world using it, i still would. However, I do not like when people complain about having no choice because I find it ignorant. However those were all your opinions, just as i have mine.
ps - the mac is not a PC... it is not an open standard and in no way could be called or compared to a pc running windows, linux, bsd, OS/2 or anything else
can't sleep slashdot will eat me
AT&T offer cable service from what I've seen. So do most cable companies. Time Warner/AOL is not the only cable company in the world.
can't sleep slashdot will eat me
haha... they'll probably mark you as flamebait... oh well. Actually Compaq is the reason we graduated to the 386, with a little help from microsoft i'll give you. As in PC i guess I take for granted IBM-Compatible but thats basically what I mean... technically we could call a beowulf of gameboys a pc under your definition. Sorry, thats my mistake. As for windows stablility, this seems to be based on personal experience. My personal experience is that windows 2k is good (unless you run some buggy program, which then isn't microsofts fault). As for 9x, especially ME i've had immense amounts of problems with it... although alot of that could be my own fault because i can be hard very hard on OS's. As for development, i gave up on using windows... because unless it was 2k it woulnd't work. Hell, thats how i got into linux... ibm gave me a win95 box to do server programming on, and i got sick of having to reboot everytime i wanted to test my search engine.
can't sleep slashdot will eat me
Yes I know cable is regional, that wasn't my point. My point was in regards to the person that said there were no other cable isps in existance, which isn't true.
can't sleep slashdot will eat me
Now that is just plain silly. You being a /. reader, should very well know that you DO NOT HAVE TO USE any Microsoft or AOL products. Saying that you have no choice is rediculous. Yeah sure 25 million people use AOL and countless use Microsoft, but that doesn't mean they have to. I don't. I have never touched AOL besides AIM (which is free anyway and relatively stable, i'm sure they ripped it off someone else) and as for Microsoft I'm a linux user, except for the occasional Win2K box (which isn't a horrible product). As you said leaving me with my only choice as a shitty product at a mediocre price yeah thats pretty true... but its not the only choice. Linux is free. Other isps maybe alittle more than aol without the hassle or restrictions. Now of course you could be talking in the 3rd person, talking as if you were brand new to computers and only knew what old Gateway and its like give you. And if thats the case, then I'm sorry if you feel the need to stand up for those that choose to remain ignorant and exploited. As for me and a great many /. readers, if we don't like it... we don't use it. We do some research look around, find something else (Why not Windows...??? How does Linux, BSD, OS/2, etc sound), or hell we create our own. So my friend, there is a choice... its just a matter of taking it.
can't sleep slashdot will eat me
As if anyone would be surprised by this. Aol and Microsoft (choose your evil) have been doing this since day 1, using a basic formula: Through cut throat tactics gain a rather good size market share, cut prices or hell give it away free raising market share again. Now merge with, finance, buyout or just plain destroy (Microsoft and Apple anyone???) your competitors and make a lot of money for along time. Money doesn't come from being the good guy folks, it comes from exploiting every possible expense or obstacle you have until it doesn't matter anymore. That is why companies like Microsoft and AOl have gotten so big... not because they're good software but because they've stood on the shoulders of others (IBM, Xerox, AT&T, etc) picking up scraps until all of a sudden they were the giants. Hate them as much as you want, but they do do one thing right: business. ps- i'm not saying they're right in what they do... however they really haven't screwed over the consumers... just other companies (which yes is very very bad, and I apologize to any programmer who had the bad luck of getting in the way of AOL or Microsoft and their goals).
can't sleep slashdot will eat me
Every time I watch that movie..and then read the news, "The Company" seems more and more like a reality.... shiver.
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It wasn't that long ago that AT&T, who had near total control of the phone lines, was forced to allow access to competitors. Methinks that if AOL/Time Warner doesn't watch their step, they might be in a similar situation a few years down the road.
Not while Dubya's in the White House, but, still...
Maybe. Likely, no. As the article states, they are already partners. So, instead of having one big giant monopoly, AOL time warner, we have an Ogliopoly which is probably worse then the first. Which would you rather have, one giant company who controls the oil supply, a bunch of smaller companies who react to each others decisions but in cooperation, or millions of tiny companies who are competing for survival. We might have the second but we need to move slightly toward the third but not so much that nobody makes any money.
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Just because a bunch of people believe or do something stupid, doesn't make it any less stupid.
Let me see if I have this right, M$ will be providing the OS (for most people), the browser (for most people), and the bandwidth (for some)? Is there any other major area of interest that they have forgotten? "Trial? Monopoly? Wait until they see what I do next!" --possible quote fo B. G.
Forgive me for illuminating the obvious, but it seems like the philosophy of government (even the judiciary) these days is a minor variation on Might-Makes-Right: Commerce-Makes-Just. Does it cause people to spend their rent money? Then it is A-OK! In this kind of environment, I certainly hope that no one here is expecting any government agency to step in on the consumer's behalf.
The only thing that amazes me is that somehow, crack dealers have not formed a giant conglomerate that's pretty much immune to legal action. Maybe that's how I'll make my millions...forget this computer shit. "I got into the crack industry just when it was starting to boom."
"Upgrade your grey matter, 'cause one day it may matter." --Deltron Zero
he prospect of a real ISP monopoly scares me shitless...
And so it should. T/W used South Africa (for one example) for it's pilot project target offering cable service for ridiculously low rates. Once they choked out ALL the competition from dialup ISPs for a connection monopoly, the prices soared.
That's an example of typical capitalist monopoly tactics. It's up to us to resist while we still have a choice. By supporting your local (community) ISP, you are sending a clear msg to the AOL/TW's of the world that bigger doesn't mean better and certainly not faster in the final analysis.
Too bad we can't throw these pro-business Republicans out of office and replace them with pro-business Democrats that pretend to give a shit.
Too bad you can't open your browser to websites like freedom.org and zmag (for example) once in a while and discover that there are OTHER options available.
Visit this url ....
Bu$h's House of Horrors
Except for maybe swarmcasting lots of redundant data (while at the same time not violating the terms by being a member of "the hive"), we'd effectively be muted as producers or distributers of content; only the 'relatively rich' could afford to have a voice with any volume (in a lovely segmented market).
Nah... It can't get that bad. >:)
Power to the Peaceful
One day we'll see a ToS that says something like, "Port 80 IS the Internet; you get 10mbps down, 28.8kbps up; If we catch you tunneling your file-sharing app we reserve the right to rape you for the lost potential profits of our partners in crime."
Power to the Peaceful
Just a thought.
Who knows, with broadband becoming more and more used I think it could be possible, I don't think AOL would make a prog you needed to have open for broadband... unless AOL is even stupider then I thought...
It is unbecoming for young men to utter maxims. -Aristotle
Compared to sending $100 million dollars to everyone's favorate Olympic hotspot.
Free Tibet! Screw the one China policy.
I'm an asshole, so what?