Slashdot Mirror
Broadband's Unintended Consequences
Makarand writes "BBC News is
reporting on the result of a long term study
conducted to find how ordinary people and small businesses in and around London and Leeds used broadband. They
found
that broadband was actually slowing down user interaction with
the Net as they are no longer afraid of spending
too much time online anymore. People did not really care about the speed at which they could download from the Net. Broadband's
selling points- like speed and the capacity to be always-on, were something
that the average person did not care about."
Personally, I don't think I really consider this to be measurable anymore. If I'm at a computer, 9 times out of 10, I'm online even if I'm just recompiling a kernel or typing up a paper. Maybe I'm not actively browsing or chatting or anything, but I consider myself online.
-N
I've nothing to say here...
Considering that telephone calls in the UK are toll calls, this is a no brainer. Back when Compuserve was The Thing and you paid by the hour you got in, did your business and got the hell out fast. With always on access who cares if it takes three minutes or thirty? You don't HAVE to run like hell anymore as the monitary cost is no longer a fctor in how long you stay on line.
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
Urm, this statement does not make sense. For sure,not many people "exploit" their broadband to the max, but then again BB services have always followed the 80/20 path.
Besides, this "slowing down user interaction" is pure bullshit. What this means is that users are actually using the "internet" for things other than email etc. Think p2p filesharing.
In Moscow it's pretty common to be able to get broadband via connection of a house to the internet using Ethernet. A majority of people live in apartments (or condos), so concentration of people is high that allow for Ethernet connection to the point of access.
The price is $35/connection a month AND some cents for a megabyte of incoming/outgoing traffic.
It should be noted that these findings were in london/leeds, where up until broadband was available, they were still paying by the minute dialup internet charges. While I still think that they enjoy the other selling points of broadband, I can see how the flat monthly fee is the most attractive feature to them.
It's A Xan Thing - http://www.xanthor.net/
I think the article is right on the money, for now. I also think the people visiting slashdot may not be the same demographic group compared to the one mentioned in the article. I guess we can be considered 'early adapters'. Where Joe Average still feels his main reason for having DSL is not having to worry about the minutes he has to pay for (and I remember that sentiment, it's been a few years though), we have already gone beyond that point and discovered that broadband gives us more possibilities. The fact that we may be a bit more computer literate won't hurt. 'Us geeks' have the toys and the knowlegde to fill the broadband, but just wait a year, or possibly even less and the learning curves will be even less steep, the software will be more user friendly and the 5Mbit digital camera will be cheaper than today. I say that broadbands selling point makes sense. It made sense for the early adapter who helped develop the market, and in the near future it will make sense to the average user who could care less right now.
I remember 5 years ago all the hype and promise of video on demand, video conferencing and the ilk.
It never happened, not just because of the RIAA but because ISP's were choked by the baby bells and couldn't sell broadband cheaply and competitively. Then there was the browser war that created about 10 different sets of standards ensuring no company could create a multimedia app without pissing everyone off for not supporting their OS/Format.
These issues still exist but hopefully MPEG4 will cure some of it. I don't know what to do on the ISP side, they are just totally screwed as long as they have to deal with the baby bells. Worldcom couldn't make it, why should any smaller ISP?
I personally don't care if it's always on. I just want it on when I want it, if that means flipping an on switch then so be it. I want it as fast as possible at the lowest price possible. I also do not want restrictions on it (i.e. no servers). As long as ISP's play that game I don't see broadband working out.
I have yet to see video conferencing work out even. I know one company that uses it and they had to get a secured dedicated T1 specifically for it. Video conferencing has so much potential it's crazy, but no one is taking advantage of it. Just watch the extras DVD in the Episode II DVD and see what Lucas's sound team did with the dedicated ISDN lines to Australia. They were doing the voice overs for the Camino characters in realtime across the world.
Anyway, some how or another all this stuff will need to shake out. The corporate arrogance will need to end it's attempts to tell customers what they want and actually listen to what they want and sell a product that meets the demand. I just don't see it happeneing any time soon.
I think it is a double edged sword. Faster access creates more dependance, but as you say it also solves the waiting game in some situations. Less time waiting = more time for something else. /. instead of doing my homework now that I can get all my assignments and notes in an instant...
But how many people you know use that extra time for something wise?
I know I don't, I just post messages to
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
I've known dialup users who downloaded way more ISOs than I ever have on cable modem (about 12 or so, mostly linux or freebsd distros I really wanted on CDs)
One person I knew averaged nearly a gig a day off dialup (24/7 leaching, primarily from usenet feeds, which are A. local, and B. 2:1-4:1 compressable when connecting over a compressed dial-up connection C. can be scheduled as a continous batch run with software like Agent)
It's not that dial-up users can't download ISOs, but rather that most people don't have the time/patience to do it. for that matter, most cable/DSL connections don't come with enough bandwith for many people's patience.
Last time FreeBSD had new ISOs it took me 15 minutes to find an unofficial mirror, and 2-3 hours to DL the iso, and I'm paying $50 a month for cable modem 800kbit/200kbit (100 KB/s / 25 KB/s) which is the highest consumer bandwith level offered by my ISP.
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
When DSL service first became available in my area 3 years ago, I signed up immediately. I owned a small computer store at the time, and I figured that the time saved downloading drivers (as we had to do frequently) would more than pay for the DSL service.
I was right - it radically changed our outlook on drivers, which were, up to that point, carefully hoarded on floppies or CDs.
But what surprised me was that suddenly, streaming video and audio where completely options! Imagine, tens of millions of computers' content available for cheap to free, and available instantly!
Mp3.com is what then made me get DSL service at home. Music from anywhere and everywhere - like having the world's largest collection of indep. band CDs...
Oh, and remember Napster?
It was just a few months later that I signed up at home, and I will not ever turn back. (I sold said computer store. Now I telecommute as my line of work - I love it!)
I guess it's sorta like the Tivo - it's hardly exciting until you've lived with it for a while. Then, it becomes something you'll not want to live without!
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
How many people will pay over 20 percent of their monthly wage for broadband?
No electrons were harmed creating this post, though some may have been subjected to electrical and/or magnetic fields.
I don't think a pure Flash layout would really be that much bigger than a pure HTML/image layout. It's just that people insist on putting sound, animation, and complex interaction in the flash version. Some of it is excusable since you need to roll your own UI code in Flash, and it can't handle very large amounts of text, but all-flash sites are quite feasible.
Thank you for summing that up so succinctly.
And it's worse when a family is involved. I am typing this on a home network where a 28.8k dialup is shared over 5 machines. My brother and sister are Kazaa (lite) leechers and all is terrible like you described.
The worst part is that decent broadband (satellite is not decent) or even 56K will never be available out here in the forseable future in rural Ontario, Canada because the population density is very low. And only 10 minutes away my friends living in the city are all on @Home enjoying fast cable.
*sob*
Let's examine the shill angle. Their mission statement says in part, "we aim to make our workplaces more effective, more successful and more fulfilling." Sound familiar, like "Everything you do will be easier and more fun."? Hmmmm, who sponsors these effeciency experts who can make my job more fulfilling? Their Executive Summary (which they claim requires Adobe, but works just fine with xpdf), does not say. It has more highly abstracted stuff that ends up calling for "smarter" regulation. They congratulate themselves in their Anual Report for "-have ensured that the Society 's name has appeared in print or been heard on television or radio almost every day..." and BINGO, "...The launch of our three-to-five-year iSociety project, with the support of Microsoft Limited..." I knew it! Strange Darwinian language about competition and the need for efficiency, while claiming to represent and care for the squezed, it just smelled like M$.
Still, it's hard to tell. The member list, contained in their 50 page anual report (50% white space, 10% photos, 25% adjective, 5% adverb, 5% hyperbole, 5% news), did not look suspicious. Members of the House of Lords, Bank of Scotland, and various Civil Servants might be forgiven for being taken in by the beast from Redmond. They seem to have some reasonable ideas about employee dignity etc, but all abstractions sound as good. Surely, the "members only web pages," are a strange way to share information. Freedom is required for dignity, folks. This paper and the iSociety makes you look like indusry shills. If I can't read your papers online, I won't be reading them and you look shallow.
Wink, Mr. Wates your secretary must be using M$ word to write "My thanks and appreciation go to every member of staff and my colleagues on the Boar and on the management team ...". Yes, that like the pig or Dutch in South Africa. A wild ride, I'm sure. Auto correct or Imperial Dream? I don't spell check for Slashdot and no one is paying me for this.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.