Myths about Internet growth

Not to troll, but.. by f00zbll · 2002-07-24 07:09 · Score: 3, Interesting

I remember president Ronald Reagan pulling the same kind of stuff when he was in office. Some of the statistics Reagan quoted in his public speeches often were wrong or had no data supporting the claim. Why is it that people buy into BS when it comes out of the president or some CEO?

Are people being stupid, or simply letting themselves get caught up in the excitement?

Re:Not to troll, but.. by Zoop · 2002-07-24 07:28 · Score: 3, Interesting

Nobody without an axe to grind ever checks sources, and additionally, people are statistically innumerate.

For example, when you hear some group come out and say "1 in 3 women are sexually assaulted every year they're at college," you have to get into Clintonesque parsings of the meaning of "sexual assault", because it means that if assaults are truly random, almost all women will have been victimized by the time they get out of school. Advocates will say "yes, that's true" and invent a reason they think 90% of women don't report an assault.

It usually turns out that assault means "felt uncomfortable and/or threatened in an ecounter with the opposite sex." How many of us haven't felt uncomfortable? I'm surprised the statistic is a mere 1/3.

Then there are ones that advocates make up out of whole cloth or unrepresentative samples, like 10% of us are homosexuals (based on a self-reporting study of inmates defining homosexual as having had a sexual situation or thought dealing with the same sex--IN PRISON) or that there are a million homeless.

In each case, people fail to translate a statistic to its logical outcome or don't apply Occam's Razor to decide that it's more likely someone is inflating a statistic for personal gain (get funding for your issue/company) than it is that life is severely different than we think and we've been indulging in false consciousness all these years.
Re:Not to troll, but.. by Anonymous Coward · 2002-07-24 07:30 · Score: 0, Interesting

"This kind of thing happens all the time. Sometimes it's an honest mis-statement or a result of unstated assumptions. Sometimes it's a blatant lie. The perception of the false comment's status generally depends on your political views. (For example, a Republican would be suspicious of Clintonian whoppers, while a Democrat would be forgiving; and the opposite dynamic would hold with Republican political statements.)"

Correct. Also consider that all Presidents are extremely busy. Most of their facts come from associates, and mistakes get made. Of course perceptions are 99 percent of this anyway. Reagan did no more or less of this than any other recent President. The fact that he was an excellent communicator and really got his points across convincingly is what really irkes the left-wingers.

On the other hand, we do have a recent example of an out-and-out blatant lie, from a certain Democratic President. Does "I did not had sexual relations with that woman" ring any bells?
Re:Not to troll, but.. by bcwengerter · 2002-07-24 07:39 · Score: 2, Interesting

Sometimes it's an honest mis-statement or a result of unstated assumptions. Sometimes it's a blatant lie.

That seems like a reasonable thing to say. Then we get to...

such as politicians, CEOs, doctors, and the mainstream media. All, interestingly enough, of these sources have egos the size of Texas and consciences the size of Guam.

I'm still trying to figure out where that statement falls in between honest mis-statement and blatant lie. :-) Do you really believe what you're saying, or are you exaggerating to make some kind of point? How many politicians, CEO's or doctors do you actually know? Do you speak from experience, or are you just making misleading statements based on false assumptions, just like the people you lament?
Re: Not to troll, but.. by pjrc · 2002-07-24 08:54 · Score: 3, Interesting
Ok, I know it's off-topic, but...
... unrepresentative samples, like 10% of us are homosexuals (based on a self-reporting study of inmates defining homosexual as having had a sexual situation or thought dealing with the same sex--IN PRISON)
I've heard the 10% number over the years and believed it, so out of curiousity I did a little little google search, and whattaya know, the #1 result was this 10% myth page from the Family Research Institute.
Also featured today on the Family Research Institute home page:
- Homosexual rape is 5-10% of all rape and is increasing
- Story of Jim, homosexual sex offendor
- Link between pedophilia and homosexuality
- Children raised by homosexuals have "childhood difficulties"
- Special Study on Homosexuality (realaudio "lessons", I didn't bother listening to it)
You can also check out their " educational pamphlets", such as " Medical Consequences of What Homosexuals Do" ... utter homophobia (and a lot of hetrosexual couples have oral sex, anal sex, kinky S&M play, but the text is pure FUD, mostly Fear) I wonder if their pamphlets are made by the Chick Tract guys.
Later on the same google result is this paper which at first appears to be based on some honest research which claims 5% and goes on to say "On the basis of the Bagley et al.(1994) sample data, it is now known that the recent studies producing 1%(90) to 3% estimates for gay males, or for males who are homosexually active, are seriously flawed." Turns out this one is hosted by the Queer Resources Directory, but the author appears to be dedicated to helping troubled homosexual teens (more google searching)
So I guess I learned something new today. The gay population numbers are in a lot more dispute than WorldCom's traffic growth due to the tension between homosexual communities and homophobic right-wing groups, the 10% number I've always heard before does appear to be a bit high. Hmm. Personally, I'm het, but I'd much rather be around people who are homosexual than people who are homophobic. Fortunately, repressed homophobics are a lot easier to spot.
Very off-topic, someone please mod me down, if for nothing else other than wasting time on this instead of what I should be working on....
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PJRC: Electronic Projects, 8051 Microcontroller Tools

Unbelievable by targo · 2002-07-24 07:13 · Score: 2, Interesting

I find it really strange how otherwise serious and well-educated people very often go along with these "X doubles every Y days" stories. Everybody who is familiar with even basic math should know that this kind of growth can only last for for a very short time, otherwise we would all be impersonating Elvis by now.
Now Worldcom probably tweaked the facts but if some people really believe in this kind of exponential growth then I hardly have any compassion for them, and blaming Worldcom or someone else for your own stupidity is just silly.

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When men used to be men

Capacity doubled - usage didn't by hughk · 2002-07-24 07:18 · Score: 5, Interesting

Nobody would put down a single fibre. It is too expensive to physically lay it. You lay two (or more) fibres instead but leave them unused (dark fibre). However, repeaters are there it is just they aren't attached wither end. Theoretically all you need is to connect a switch and you have your extra capacity.

This should have meant high bandwidth and low prices, but as suppliers like Worldcom had to borrow heavily for their infrastructure costs, they were stuck with high prices. Something similar happened with Deutsche Telekom in Germany. They built a fibre network through the former DDR but borrowed heavily to finance it. The things is that nobody was going to pay for that capacity at a premium price. Telekom didn't mess around with their predictions in the way that Worldcom did, but they also came unstuck.

The problem comes down to the revenue models and the telecom analysts in the banks. If I have a bank of 64K connections and I upgrade them to 1024K, I can't simply charge 16 times the price. A few customers can afford this (think banks), but many others can not.

Capacity including dark fibre definitely was doubling every 100 days but usage wasn't and certainly not revenue.

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See my journal, I write things there

At the University where I work... by RumGunner · 2002-07-24 07:22 · Score: 3, Interesting

Usage tends to grow by leaps and bounds every time someone comes up with a new file sharing protocol.

Maybe that statement was from the good ol' days of Napster.

Come on. Lets place blame, where blame is due. by EvlOvrLrd · 2002-07-24 07:23 · Score: 2, Interesting

This perversion of Moore's Law was a fault (in part by the telecom industry for believing the hype that the rest of the money grubbing industries where touting. Movies over the Net. Everyone telecommuting. Attend college classes from home. More retail content than you can choke on. Plus a bevy of other "wouldn't it be cool" party line hype that drove the bubble. Me? I blame it on the GUI and Mouse. If it wasn't for those things, the Net would still be a usefull place (tool, etc).

--

Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear to be bright. Until you hear them speak.

Price of Bandwidth by _Sprocket_ · 2002-07-24 07:24 · Score: 5, Interesting

We've all heard talk of over-built data networks and "dark fiber". What interests me is how this apparent over-capacity does not seem to match up the price of bandwidth and the apparent bandwidth management of consumer-level heavy users.

Is there a mismatch? Do we actually have a demand that's being held in check by an inappropriate pricing schedule (perhapse even businesses with a lack of vision)? Or does potential capacity fail to overcome the cost of "lighting up" and maintaining these over-built networks?

Re:Price of Bandwidth by dubiousmike · 2002-07-24 08:23 · Score: 2, Interesting

ok - something that occured to me a few days ago...

Once the infrastructure (or is it extrastructure? but I digress) for bandwidth is there, isn't bandwidth actually free? I mean, I know that there are costs involved with running the network, upkeep of epuiptment, salaries to pay, ect...

But is there really a difference in the cost of providing bandwidth (other than hardware, which is still a fixed cost) if I want a low end ISDN line or an OC3 pipe? I would liken it to cable TV. Somehow I manage to now get digital cable with a few hundred more channels than its anolog predecessor for the same price. The cable company didn't really have to do all that much other than give me a new cable box (which I rent from them).

My phone line has been there for years. Other than a $50 line cleaning kit, what is really the increase in cost for me to get DSL? Other than equiptment that the telco buys to provide DSL. If they buy it to provide access to one user, what is the increase in cost when you add another 300 users? I understand that hubs and routers have physical limitations, but it just seems that we are getting porked.

I might back up the above by comparing it to wireless (cell) phones vs traditional land lines. Don't the cell division make hand over fist compared to the land line division? I mean, they put up a tower that can service thousands of people. No cables (from telco to your phone) and thus significantly less service persons and cost per customer. It makes me wonder if my inflated cost for use of a cell phone (in my opinion) is there to offset the money-sucking land line division... Shouldn't cell phone service be only a small % of the (my) cost of wire-based telephone service in my house?

Hopefully, some of you might be able to give me some insight on the actual difference in costs of providing limited bandwidth vs high capacity bandwidth.

Seems like a giant scam to me.

Of course, I certainly don't want to go back to dial-up. But I would think that the industry's standardization of the costs for these services (at least smacks of some sort of collusion) has set them unreasonably high and thus out of the price range of many consumers.

PC manufacturers have met the need for low cost computing, but what about bandwidth providers who are still giving us the slowest element of our computing architecture.

nope... by TibbonZero · 2002-07-24 07:35 · Score: 2, Interesting

Nope, it doesn't double every 100 days, but the number of my posts to /. do.

Now if only the size of my Beowulf cluster would double every 100 days...
Hey, wait a sec... if the internet WERE doubling every 100 days, then wouldn't that mean that they would have to make double the servers every 100 days?....

--
Tibbon
tibbon.com

Worldcom by ajs · 2002-07-24 07:36 · Score: 3, Interesting

Meanwhile, MCI/Worldcom/UUNET was dubbed "Whipping Boy of the Hour" by 17 leading pseudo-news organizations around the world.

Why is it that we pretend that such over-zealous predictions are unique?

Worldcom is in trouble so attacking them is easy: they have bigger fish to fry. If you go after Sprint this way, those bastards might sue you!

Failed dotcom visionary. by miffo.swe · 2002-07-24 08:29 · Score: 2, Interesting

The ISP's thought they could recover the losses on delivering bandwidth with the upcoming content buisiness. What they failed to see whas that no one would be buying content until the bandwidth was enough to support content like video and such at an acceptable quality. 512 kbit/s isnt near enough for semi quality video (no glitches and acceptable resolution). Bandwidth demand wont rise much until there is content that demands it and vice versa. If i do the things i do today i really dont need more bandwidth. I surf and d/l and chat. If i dont take pirating movies into the account there are few occasions where i really would benifit from having more bandwidth. A faster ping might help me when i run around fragging in fraggelonia but all the bandwidth in the world wont matter a bit. If movie companies start renting out movies on the net and does it broadly it would create a big demand for bandwidth but it has to happen at the same time and not one a while after the other. Worldcom and other ISP's have been waiting on the content companies and vice versa.

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HTTP/1.1 400

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