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Regional Bells Blocking Broadband Competition
Tim Doran writes "USA Today has a story today describing regulatory moves by the regional Bell companies meant to stifle competition in broadband. Of course, nobody plays the regulators like the ILECs, and they're using their massive fiber builds as leverage against the regulators. They're even running interference on municipalities who are trying to build their own fiber networks!"
An ILEC is a telephone company that was providing local service when the Telecommunications Act of 1996 was enacted.
wdd
A classic example of policies interfering with progress.
Electrons are free; it is moving them that becomes expensive.
I suppose that they are going to oppose Internet2 research eventually just because the universities and organizations that created that network are not using their facilities to transmit the data... this is why some parts of the US economy are on the way to failure, because a few large bodies who monopolize the market in telecoms can't innovate fast enough, and spank down those who can.
When I was back home in Kansas City over Christmas, my uncle-in-law, who is a lawyer for the city of North Kansas City, was telling us about how Time Warner Cable was sueing the city because they were trying to put in their own cable broadband lines.
""USA Today has a story today describing regulatory moves by the regional Bell companies meant to stife competition in broadband. Of course, nobody plays the regulators like the ILECs, and they're using their massive fiber builds as leverage against the regulators. They're even running interference on municipalities who are trying to build their own fiber networks!""
Are there any running gun battles.
You are saying that Auburn, a team that struggled to beat 2-loss Virgina Tech, is better than USC, a team that is kicking the shit out of undefeated Oklahoma? Then again, USC did struggle in a few games, coming back to win late. Still, since I am from the south I would kill to see Auburn vs USC or Okalahoma. However, I would not argue that Auburn deserves even a piece of the title. Their showing yesterday was weak at best, pathetic at worst.
We're familiar with that type of game here in the Fox Valley area west of Chicago. We had three communities try to pull together to get municipal broadband through and it was fought tooth and nail by SBC. It is pretty pathetic that we are still waiting for complete broadband services out here given that Fermilab is in Batavia (one of the three cities). SBC resorted to scary, misleading ads and other dirty tricks and managed to keep the plan suppressed.
Who would have ever thought?
"The No. 2 wireless carrier, Verizon Wireless, is also controlled by a Bell company, Verizon."
Holy shit did you ever fail it.
I'm not a fan of the bells, but they don't have much room left to maneuver. They're got a government regulated monopoly to deliver local phone service. Cheap. To everybody. For a dying service because everybody's using cell phones. They can now compete in long distance and TV now but everybody's using their cell phone for long distance and cable and satellite are far more popular choices for TV than "the phone company". And yet they've still got this boat-anchor around their necks in delivering high quality and low cost 100% uptime POTS lines to every person in an area. If they want to raise rates or change service, they have to get permission from the government.
So now along comes high speed service which is about the only feature they can compete on and now the SAME governments that forced them into these bizarre redtape bureaucratic maneuvers want to build their own fiber lines! For a political boondoggle! Yeah, if I were a Bell exec, I'd be pulling every trick in the regulatory book I could to keep my business afloat.
Now personally, I think the bells are dinosaurs and they're screwing over my favorite ISP by offering their DSL at cut rate prices but forcing my ISP to resale at $10/month more.
But don't be suprised when the Bells use the tools at their disposal to survive. Instead wonder why it is that the legislatures seem to think they're at the mercy of the Bells and not the other way around!
We have this problem in my hometown ( or something similiar ). 2 different companies wanted to come in and stick a big antenna on top of our water tower and provide wireless broadband connections to everyone within reach. Only problem is that they had to get their high speed connection through the local phone company (TDS) and it turned out that the company had plans to bring DSL into the area in a year or so, so they drug their feet and eventually it never materialized... twice! two different companies denied. Now we get their high priced slow ass DSL and all towns around our area with different phone providers have the wireless available. Its completely retarded.
RBOC: "Regulations, motherfucker, do you write them?"
FCC: "Yes..."
RBOC: "Now describe to me what our customers look like."
FCC: "T-they're kinda wooly... and have four legs..."
RBOC: "Go on" FCC: "...and they eat grass..."
RBOC: "Do they look like one of our customers?"
FCC: "What?
RBOC: "DO. THEY. LOOK. LIKE. A. CUSTOMER?" FCC: "N-no?" RBOC: "Then why you tryin' to stop us from fuckin' them like one?"
What's really funny?
I didn't post this anon after all!
I mean, could anybody have foreseen that the phone monopolies would try to remain monopolies? Here's a trick for identifying scumbags: look for where there is easy money to be made by chiseling people who have few or no alternatives. Samples of this phenomenon include health care, real estate, and government. Oh, and quite often, telecommunications.
"OH SHIT, THERE'S A HORSE IN THE HOSPITAL!"
Personally, I think municipal networks (GMING springs to mind) are the way to go. I don't like the idea of private companies, with minimal to no accountability to anyone (except maybe the top 5 richest shareholders not on the board), having absolute control over who can do what.
True, Governments tend to abuse authority as much as anyone else, but at least you can vote them out of office. They also have a bit more ready cash to play with than most corporations, making the idea of ten gigabit pipes to the home a possibility. (So much so that Japan is planning exactly that.)
As it stands, most private ISPs are a bunch of incompetents who profit largely by backstabbing other private ISPs. (I can't think of any ISPs I've used, over time, that I actually liked for the quality of service.)
The main reason multicasting isn't deployed is because they don't know how to bill people for it. The fact that they don't bill any other protocol doesn't enter into the picture. IPv6 has never made much headway, not because it's not needed or wanted (since when have users not wanted things that automagically configured themselves and worked out of the box, wholly mobile and utterly transparently?) but because it IS automatic, mobile, etc, making the whole "ISP Experience" irrelevent and actually a disincentive.
In the end, ISPs don't want competition. Competition means smaller profits, especially as the number of USians going online has flattened off sharply. They want a homogenius, uniform, consistant monopoly. And if you're going to have that anyway, why not have someone like DARPA or NIST run the damn thing, so at least you know someone technically competent is running the show?
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Just a year, but it was enough. Money, unions, political kickbacks, etc;
ALL employees were required to go to bi-annual meetings where they were "asked" to join the lobbying group to call the government and relay the phone company's agenda. You had to either sign-up or sign a waiver.
How's THAT for political pressure?
since when? Does anyone remember the monopoly break up years ago? the FCC has slowly been handing the monopoly right back to them. Those of you interested in trying to stop this, (which would have been nice if the author actually mentioned something about it) you can go to
www.cispa.org or www.nationalinternetalliance.org
$10, $100, $500, or even $1000 to help with the legal battle will not be turned away. If you want more of a choice than comcast, verizon, or SBC, help those of us out that are trying to actually keep it an open market, or stop crying about shitty service.
Is that they have built their networks on our dime. They would have you believe that they built these huge networks out of their own pocket and that they took a huge risk in doing so.
The truth is that these infrastructures were built by government and given to them for maintainence. Perhaps not literally, but certainly financially. The phone company does not have emminent domain rights to my property to erect poles (snicker) or dig a trench, but for that power allowed them by the government. If they had to pay anything, it was small, and it didn't matter anyway, since they were nurtured by guaranteed profits by Public Service Commissions.
To have these guys behave in this way now disgusts me. There are 'real' companies taking 'real' risks these days without any guarantees of success or profit and they end up paying through the nose for communications lawyers just to get the chance to compete. I don't know if you have had to deal with a baby bell trouble ticket recently, but it wouldn't be hard to beat them in service.
The way I see it, the baby bells are only winning this race because we gave them a 75 year headstart.
This is par for the course with any monopoly, especially the ILECs. Then again, it is par for the course in ANY industry that has its business model threatened by (at least one) new technology. What would be groundbreaking is if the Baby Bells ACCEPTED and EMBRACED new business models and technologies.
"Here's a trick for identifying scumbags: look for where there is easy money to be made by chiseling people who have few or no alternatives. Samples of this phenomenon include health care, real estate, and government. Oh, and quite often, telecommunications."
And yet we had a story awhile back were a good percentage didn't even own a phone. Guess people do have alternatives. Of course for a population that apparently can't say no to that last donut (most obese country), or that last "must have " purchase (highest debt load). I can see why you all see everything in such a "my way" or "I really mean my way" fashion.
...partly because of things like this that Qwest pulled. They were able to offer DSL piggybacking over the phone line, while we had to order an unbundled loop circuit (which cost money up front we had to charge the customer), then send out a tech to wire the circuit at the customer premise. When you compared pricing, customers would see a $99 setup fee from us for the circuit, modem, and sending a tech out to do an install, while Qwest would "waive" all but $.99
This is not to mention things like swiping the UBLs to for voice lines (hey, there's no dialtone, it must be a free line -- oops, down goes someone's DSL for a week), and circuits showing too high insert loss/bridge taps/whatever and then turning around and offering the customer their own DSL within a week of requesting the information from Qwest. It got so we would simply check the distance from the C.O. and if it looked okay and there were people in the neighborhood that had service we would send out a tech to do our own test.
Their actions might not have been on purpose, but the regional Bells show gross indifference if not utter contempt for CLECs.
Here's a trick for identifying scumbags: look for where there is easy money to be made by chiseling people who have few or no alternatives. Samples of this phenomenon include health care, real estate, and government. Oh, and quite often, telecommunications.
And illicit drugs -- now there's a market where bold entrepreneurs (read: scumbags) can chisel easy money out of people who have few or no alternatives.
-kgj
-kgj
then TW should sue.
The business model most of these city networks are based on long term bond issues. Most private enterprise deals with a 5 year payback, if that, these days.10-15 years is a long time to gain customers, figure out what works and what doesn't, etc.
The other thing is that they'll need a backbone connection (unless they are going to build out to the closest MAE). Odds are very high that they'll get some portion of that bandwidth over Bell fiber, even though they might be getting service from Level 3 or a long distance co. So don't think the RBOCs are loosing. They're just doing what they have to.
"Well, good luck finding a judge that doesn't run a bestiality site."
Not taking shit from the Bell co. and their attempt to monopolize broadband.
.
We need communities to follow her example. Broadband shopping is not like buying a car. It's an investment in infrastructure just like roads and electric plants. This is what the 'RIGHT WINGERS' don't want you to know. They reply with propoganda that government will only hurt broadband when in fact most monopolies of this countries have been private companies.
I see the Bill Gates , Carnegies , Rockefellers and other criminal monopolists as an excellent analogy to whats going on here.
They are trying to crush competition ! They don't want poor folk to get broadband because it cuts into profit margin !
What's even funnier is that the government created the first network
And even funnier is that the phone company hated the internet because it cut into their long distance business. Now they say they care about the consumer. BULLSHIT !
you can only get verizon DSL if you use there phone phone service. I know a few people who actually sighned up for AT&T DSL service and they had to go trogh hell because verizon didn't want them to go. It's a vicious battle and the customer looses this one because of lack of choice.
"Is that they have built their networks on our dime. They would have you believe that they built these huge networks out of their own pocket and that they took a huge risk in doing so."
*Looks through tax returns for the past five years*
Nope. No phone company tax.
"The truth is that these infrastructures were built by government and given to them for maintainence. "
Really? What history book did you get that out of?
"If they had to pay anything, it was small, and it didn't matter anyway, since they were nurtured by guaranteed profits by Public Service Commissions."
Umm..no. Taxes would be a "guaranteed profit". When I shut off my phone service for about a year and a half. SBC didn't get any "guaranteed profits" from me.
"I don't know if you have had to deal with a baby bell trouble ticket recently, but it wouldn't be hard to beat them in service."
Same with the cable company.
"Don't you mean corporate greed?"
If it wasn't for "greed". There would be a lot of things you wouldn't have. Some quite necessary.
Back in 2000 I worked for a company named Winfire - anyone remember Winfire? Anyhow, Winfire's product was ad-supported free DSL. Essentially we were a reseller of SBC DSL and we made our money from the ads that our users had to view through our front end. Fair enough: you received free DSL, we recouped the costs and a bit more from our advertisers. The problem was SBC: a byzantine 23-step provisioning process (And if a user got "lost" at any step it was up to us to catch it and start them back - at step 1, naturally) to sudden and mysterious changes in DSLAM settings which left our users with no connection. SBC did a thousand crappy little things to make certain that our users were dissatisfied. Winfire went belly-up in early 2001. Maybe we deserved it, but I can not help but think that SBC did a great job of greasing the skids for us and for anyone else who chose to act as a reseller under the terms of the Telecommunications Act.
Survival is the plan at SBC. My sister works for SBC. Here are her points.
- Maintaining the current twisted pair mess is expensive. SBC would like to just let this cable rot.
- Fiber and the associated routers are far easier to maintain, and do not require a service call for every little change.
- The Bells need to be saved from all of the competitors listed in the article.
Those who doubt the high maintainence costs of the present network should look at their condo/apartment wiring box. It's usually a mess.I don't think SBC should be helped in their plight, my sister excluded. It appears each community has for defend its own right to a non-monopolized network.
Isn't this fundamentally about business power and greed? Does anyone think that we could use a new icon for this kind of thing? Perhaps a board room meeting with thought clouds of dollars? I think it would help shine the light on the way things are going these days and it would surely be interesting to see how many good stories get this identification.
And illicit drugs -- now there's a market where bold entrepreneurs (read: scumbags) can chisel easy money out of people who have few or no alternatives.
Not true. I have way more choices when it comes to drug dealers than I do phone companies. Its a LOT easier to buy pot than it is to buy beer a lot of the time from the government controlled monopoly here.
our broadband-competition-blocking Baby Bell overlords.
Add Qwest to this fucked-up list of idiots. They threatened us ( a local consortium of public education and city government in Oregon) with legal action because we wanted to set up our own fiber network instead of paying to run over their lines.
Joke's on them, though. We finished it, and its fully operational.
Bye bye income for Qwest, probably one of the worst companies in terms of price, service, and billing. Their incompetence with billing and overbilling customers is legendary.
If they were a real company, and not just a bunch of opportunistic installers, then they could have run their own fiber to a regional hub somewhere else. These 2 companies sound like they were trying to get free access from the phone company. There was nothing stopping them from running a fiber bundle to a major city where they could hook into the internet from there. They didn't have to go through the local phone company.
What you say sounds very fishy. Under what statute were they going to sue you? My understanding of telecom law is that it is pretty open to put in as much fiber as you want, and no one can stop you from doing it. Can you better describe what the threats were? What city was this?
One of the core developers for Voodoo Linux wrote the FAQ for using the Linksys WPC11 card. If it doesn't support that card out of the box, I'd be surprised, though their web pages were sadly a little lacking in detail on hardware compatibility.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
No, if NKC gave an exclusive monopoly to TW, then the people of NKC should vote against every remaining council member who approved the TW monopoly.
I have way more choices when it comes to drug dealers than I do phone companies. Its a LOT easier to buy pot than it is to buy beer a lot of the time from the government controlled monopoly here.
Okay, you're a lucky guy.
But I stand by my assertion -- if pot were legal, it would be (a) free, or damned near; (b) available all the time; (c) available in plenty of varieties. Hell, it's a goddamn tenacious weed, you can hardly stop the stuff from growing.
Similar economics for cocaine, although I don't happen to be a coke user. If it were legal, it would just be another white powder stimulant, like sugar -- not free, but not expensive, either.
Indeed, this is a major reason why pot/coke/etc. remain illegal -- those currently reaping the profits only do so because these substances are illegal. The blacker the market, the richer the markup.
It further stands to reason that our dearly beloved elected officials are getting a cut of the illegal take, or maybe their balls are in the grip of organized crime -- otherwise they'd legalize and tax it.
-kgj
-kgj
although I don't happen to be a coke user.
Is it Pepsi for you, or 7 UP?
If it were legal, it would just be another white powder stimulant, like sugar
Too bad Coca-Cola switched to high fructose corn syrup.
I see the Bill Gates, Carnegies, Rockefellers and other criminal monopolists as an excellent analogy to whats going on here. They are trying to crush competition !
Agreed.
Similarly, I see homo sapiens as the problem here -- killing and eating Neanderthal man to extinction.
-kgj
-kgj
My (favorite) ISP, Sonic.net, on December 20th, filed comments at the FCC in response to BellSouth's request to exclude independent ISPs from access to DSL. The concern is that if BellSouth gets it's way, SBC may do the same. This would leave all California with just two choices for DSL: SBC or Comcast. Sonic.net is well worth the extra money I pay each month. I don't want to lose that choice.
Here's the PDF of their comments.
To a politician, one email equals one voter.
...That Corporate America becomes increasingly more unethical every day and no one seems to notice or care.
The way they bribe congress, lie to the consumer, lie to regulators, and pull double-standards right out in the open like Bell did in this article.
I mean, really... Has no one noticed that "binding arbitration" appears in just about everything you are required to sign now? Do you people not know that this usurps your right to a trial by jury? That the real function behind it, wether or not you win the arbitrator's decision, is so that the company can't be found "guilty" of a criminal actions that would surface in a trial?
Oh wait, not that being found guilty in a court would matter... Look what happened to Microsoft...
(a) free, or damned near; (b) available all the time; (c) available in plenty of varieties
It's all of those things now. When I was a kid pot was $15/gram. These days it's $5 if it costs anything at all.
this is a major reason why pot/coke/etc. remain illegal -- those currently reaping the profits only do so because these substances are illegal
I'm not big on conspiracy theories. I think it has everything to do with years of disinformation being shouted at the public. It's just not PC (in the states at least) to show support for decriminalization. Here in Canada the majority of the population supports it so it's not quite so taboo; you can say drug laws are stupid here, and you're not quite so likely to be labelled a crackpot. However there is still a stigma attached to marijuana users, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
"Similarly, I see homo sapiens as the problem here -- killing and eating Neanderthal man to extinction."
That's actually a myth. Check one of the recent science magazines for proof.
There are very few options for anyone that wants anything beyond dialup other than 1. Whichever cable company owns their geographic region. 2. Whichever ILEC owns the RBOC for their region. or 3. Fighing to get a 3rd party DSL service provided by (2).
The ILEC's do *everything* they can do prevent new entrants to the field, and to make it hard or expensive for existing ones, including things that I consider 'fighting dirty', such as trying to get legislation to block one of the few groups of entities that might actually have the resources and the wherewithal to be able to compete on an equal footing, the municipalities and other local government bodies.
"In the end, ISPs don't want competition. "
Funny. I get a similiar impression every time I read an outsourcing article on Slashdot.
The topic you want is called The Almighty Buck.
The baby bells are government created monopolies. Just thought you should know.
Come on already! Give me my satellite broadband!
FCC Chairman Michael Powell has done everything in his power to restrict American citizens' choice of information and entertainment
Powell is one of the most digusting double talkers. Talks one thing to the public, does exactly the opposite in congress. He should be castrated.
Aint it a thing of beauty?
eat shiat and bark at the moon
I wouldn't believe it if I didn't read it on the Internets [=)]
A city... passed a law... GUARANTEEING BUSINESS TO A PRIVATE COMPANY. A L-A-W. That thing that is supposed to ensure order and justice. To guarantee profits. To a private company.
What the sweet fucking hell is wrong with you people?!?!? How does shit like this happen?!?
And, IIRC, don't ya'll have a funny thing called "Taxes" that is supposed to be used for "Public Services" such as water, roads... and the Internet? I'd call that a necessity in the New World, little Mr. 13th-in-the-world.
Seriously, I'm not trolling. What the fuck is wrong with a country when a company can sue because, in doing something good, a public entity takes away possible profits? And how the fuck does NO-ONE stand up and complain? I know most of the media is more concerned with money than with truth, but how does this not sneak in somewhere... a major newspaper, an anchor who just blurts it out...
COME ON PEOPLE! Democracy is a method of government. Communism is a method of government. Autocracy is a method of government. CAPITALISM IS NOT A FUCKING METHOD OF GOVERNMENT!
If I knew the wedgies I gave you back in 6th grade would have resulted in this . . . I might have taken a moments pause.
Don't you know that American free enterprise capitalism as exemplified by the Telcos is the best of all possible worlds?
/sarcasm (hey, it's Slashdot!)
What you did in Oregon is COMMUNISM! Traitor!
Excuse me now, I have to pray at my Ayn Rand shrine....
eat shiat and bark at the moon
Pure truth. In highschool, pot was a cell phone call away, with at least 3 reliable choices of dealers to choose from. Then delivered in 30 minutes tops! (Keep in mind this was in BC, Canada)
But booze on the other hand, was always a mission. If you didn't have a brother, sister or older friend, it meant standing outside the liquor store waiting for a shady or young looking person to buy it for you.
Seriously, a lot of this binding arbitration language has happened because of abuses in the legal 'profession'. Once you get lawyers involved 90% of your gains from the action (or more) are history. It's like watching a family tear itself apart over an estate. No one really makes out but the lawyers.
At any rate, real reform probably won't happen through lawsuits. There's going to need to be completely transparent, independant regulatory oversight for that to happen on the scale it needs to.
"...Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam..."
For 10 years, I worked as a SONET/DWDM engineer, designing and implementing fiber installations for one of these ILECs.
I read the article. The ILEC is standing in the way of progress? Give me a break. Sure, in this instance, they're complaining.... but local and state governments stand in the way all the time, yet that never makes the newspapers. I've seen cities grant access to install fiber, and then decide they're going to jack up the right-of-way costs to the ILEC, and then give away access to the competition for pennies per mile. Fair? Or unfair?
Often, local governments will take bids for right-of-way to install fiber. That doesn't promote competition. It tells me that the local government is greedy, and they want money to spend. They aren't interested in competition until years later when the citizens are angry with the single provider that won the bid.
During the dotcom boom, many cities took bids for fiber-based infrastructure builds. And often times, it was some poorly-planned flash-in-the-pan company that spent their entire wad winning the bid for a single city, and had very little money for equipment, labor, or anything else. Does anyone know if Sacramento got their city-wide fiber-to-the-home project completed? The last I heard, the company had gone bankrupt during installation, and had been bought by someone else. I hadn't heard whether installation was completed in any neighborhood. Anyone? Is that what you want coming to your house?
I've also seen local governments place a 10 year moratorium on new construction because people don't like their streets dug up. Frankly, that stifles competition too.
Laying fiber is very expensive. It's not like DSL, where you're re-using the copper loop, or cable modem, where the cable companies laid fiber to the neighborhood, and re-used the coax to the home. Fiber-to-the neighborhood is cheaper by far than fiber to the curb. Fiber is a huge pain to lay to the home.
Surveying, digging, laying conduit with thoughts to bend radius, redundancy, sewer, water, power, and future repair access for accidental cuts? Hope that the contractor has their best person running the backhoe so you don't have to worry about severed gas, electrical, or water lines. Then blow fiber down the conduit, terminate it, light it, test it, educate the end-users (the 50% that initially express an interest), all the while working with city planners, utility companies, city water/sewer departments, and keep the subcontractors in line? Then, after years of work, put active services on it, give away service for the first few months, and then hope to turn a profit at what the government says you can charge for services. And listen to people complain about the high cost? And then hope to be LUCKY to get 20% (I'm optimistic) of the installed homes as paying subscribers?
It's no wonder that the ILECs are concerned. It takes a long time to build, and it's very expensive. And the stockholders and Wall Street are mad if the payoff is anything over 5 years.
What would you think if you just spend $50 million laying fiber rings (not fiber to the home, but the precursor... fiber to the neighborhood), and then the local government decided to subsidize a "public" network, undercutting your entire investment?
And then consider this:
Installation into a neighborhood of 400 homes, you need 400 timeslots on the SONET ring, or 400 wavelengths on a DWDM system. And then expect that 20% will subscribe, but they'll move every other year or so?
Much of the fiber that was blown into the conduits during the dotcom boom is already out-of-date when even last years' best DWDM equipment is considered. The older fiber has problems handling 40, 60, or 80 wavelengths. So you might need to spend millions on extra DWDM chassis to cover a neighborhood. Sure, you could use a DWDM to cover a neighborhood, and then use SONET to hit every house, but who wants a DS3 or less to their home?
Personally, I'd rather have a wave on the
-- No sig for you!
Corporations are only efficient at the bottom of the hierarchy. THe workers are forced to be efficient or be fired. But all the surpluse gets eaten up by the vampires at the top--CEO's etc.
For example, look at the Social Securiy Administration, which provides medical care administration. It's administration costs are only ONE PERCENT of its total budget. Now, your typical HMO also provides medical care administration, but it has 15% admin costs. It's true that the the HMO is more efficient at the botton, where we workers have to watch ourselves more, or get fired. But the HMO managers make the 15% admin costs with all their perks and bonuses.
The problem is that you and most of AMerica have bought into a bunch of corporate propaganda.
eat shiat and bark at the moon
Welcoming our new insect overlords, I can understand that. Welcoming slimy green new overlords from Sludgebarf 9, sure. Welcoming Sauron, evil overlord from Mordor, is a bit iffy, but I can live with that. Welcoming the Shadows from Z'ha'dum as our new overlords seems cool, especially given that the Minbari's motives are pretty suspect anyway.
But welcoming our broadband-competition-blocking Baby Bell overlords? That's just going too far!
Ask your self why wouldn't a multi trillion dollar company want to have a second kick at the can. For 60+ years bell has been huge because of their POTS cable. That made them lots of money.
Now there is progress and the replacement is here. Did you actually suspect Bell to sit on its thumbs? This is a test of the people and the governament because each foot thats burried is good for 100+ years. And I can guarentee they want to make at least a nickle for each dollar used on thier network.
A loop, by its nature, continues. If that didn't make sense, start reading this sentence again.
Before you know it, they are going to be getting into TV and DVRs - because - god forbid someone else has a product they don't.... Oh... wait....
People need to fucking take a stand!
If you "big-city" residents think it's bad, try living in a rural farming community. Sprint DSL here, 256Kbps, is about $58 per month! I am paying $18 per month for somewhat unreliable 56k.
The only other option here is cable, but the cable TV service requires you to be a cable subscriber to get their broadband service for $30 per month. They don't tell you that the cable TV service is $70 per month.
I am seriously thinking about forming a "freenet" as someone called it. I need to do some research and whatnot, then I will move it to the local public. I seriously think that if every area were to do something like this, it would give Ma and Pa Bell a run for their money, and since it would be privately owned, funded, and operated, they wouldn't be able to do Jack Schitt about it.
To 'run interference' is to act in cooperation, as in; 'player B ran interference FOR player A'.
To have said; 'ILECs are attempting to interfere with... ' would have been correct.
I hope that we are not seeing the gruesome birth of yet another distortion, like the 'carrot and stick', which began as and is still properly, 'carrot ON a stick'.
I do applaud any effort to publicize the economic tyranny of the telcos, and how it acts to subjugate 'us all' to the will of short-sighted bean-counters and their ilk.
Shut up pinko.
how about haveing a goverment enforsed monoply ?
read the rants
thouhgh there are worse telcoms then ours in dark africa, any one in kenya will problay have lots to say about it
Here in Australia we have our own competition overlord called Telstra, they own the copper network, and theyre part govenment owned part private owned (although the Government wants to sell it all, copper network and all)
So yeah we know what its like to have competition swayed in Australia, the way Telstra protects itself in terms of looking after its private interests by using the power of its government interests.
But what large corporate jugganaught wouldnt eh?
And remember, competition isnt in the interest of the directors, the share holders or the people getting the golden handshakes..
Its only a matter of time before Telstra becomes alot like the so called 'broken up' Baby Bells..
heh..
-- Jim.
-- If at first you don't succeed, lie!
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that this is a case of the state having an unfair advantage over a business. This is much like the case of the US Postal Service trying to compete with the likes of UPS and FedEx. The postal service has a "potentially" limitless source of funds while the respective companies are restricted by market forces. This all means that the post office can prcatice predatory pricing, operating at a loss to capture more market share, and FedEx/UPS would not be able to compete. This relates to the current situation in that if a city decides to invest taxpayer money in a fiber network and then give it away for free, or make it part of the tax burden, they would be practicing predatory pricing, unfairly using their position of privledge to take away a market for a company such as Bell South and profiting from that privledge. Much like monopolies do to lesser competitors today.
Dude! Late 70's it was 30-40 per ounce!
In the 60s it was even less
Late 70's it was 30-40 per ounce!
And you could buy a small country with $30, we know. Then inflation happened and you couldn't anymore. Get over it.
Bastards!
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
Here in Sweden we have a lot of municipality owned power companies that have entered the broadband business, some supplying fiber to the curb, some going all the way and connecting private houses and offering services.
Generally, these entities have little clue on what is important when offering services, whereas they are excellent at putting cables (=fiber) in the ground.
As long as taxpayer funded entities put cables in the ground, it is necessary that these are available to all players to rent. This has the added value that the long write-off of these kind of cable systems, can be handled better by these than by smaller companies that have problems with cash-flow, who instead can concentrate on lighting up the fiber and offering services.
I went through the exact same hell getting my acx111 card working. Got the drivers working but went really slow, have had much better luck loading the windows drivers with ndiswrapper, up and running in 2 sec & full speed, after the quest trying to get it working with the open source drivers. I've installed two wireless cards on linux, neither of them were 'supported' and both were unnecsesarily difficult.
simplyMepis was supposed to, didn't work for me though.
Oh no, the big bad robber barons are at it again -- out to pillage our little community.
I'll bet $10M this dilusional mayor, Joey Boy, couldn't even get fiber if he ate a pound of Metamucil.
Looks like every little shithead these days is sitting high on his soapbox, trying to capitalize on this "broadband revolution".
Put the brighest individuals from slashdot, the upper echelon of technologists, in the same room together -- you guys would be lucky to get two cans and a piece of string working as a phone.
These companies have weight: monitary, political, etc. They'll beat/acquire the startup 11 times out of 10. Top talent flocks to them like a nigger to a blonde white girl.
Open sores software, GNU hippies, abd all related bullshit needs to take a hike. You guys live in a fantasy world.
The real world doesn't give two-shits about how "cool" your new project is. Wow, you can run telephony services off a x86 linsux pc, congratufuckinglations. Good luck trying to pitch that bullshit to any respectable company, hahaha.
WELCOME TO REALITY.
Fact is in the telco market (which includes broadband) competition is inefficient & the more competition the more inefficient the delivery of services are.
Remember economies of scale are king in this game - relatively speaking a nationwide telco with a 1/3 of the market has virtually the same costs as a nationwide telco with 2/3 of the market, or even one with 90% of the market.
Now corporate monopolies demand over regulation which is why govt telco monopolies are the go - if prices go up too much polies get voted out; so there's really no need for all the consumer & anti-trust regulation that private monopolies demand.
So what we need are govt utility telco monopolies, like most places had (all of Europe, Oz, New Zealand, etc) until the Thatcherite consultants started meddling & persuaded all the world's govt telcos to be privatised to pay for election promises. Already today, just a decade or so later, most in the know recognise the period of govt telco privatisation as a historic mistake (as things go that's quite remarkable, afterall it took nearly 5 decades for many pundits to realise that the creation of Israel was a historical mistake, of cause we're exluding those who always recognised this).
Just look at how the fantastic economies of scale of having 100% of the market has aided Singapore Telecom in it's amazing job rolling out the latest 'n greatest in buzzwords network wise to every business & residence on the island, at the govt's behest. All of which would've been impossible to do at the price without having 100% of the market & without the advantage of govt legislation dealing with any problems that get in the way. A fine example of pragmatism over ideology. Remember pragmatism always wins out of ideology, even the ideology of the free market (the same pragmatism over the ideology of the free market gave us the national highway system in the US).
You're missing
d.) taxed to fuck like cigarettes and alcohol.
If pot, etc, is legalized, you'll see an enormous tax placed on it almost overnight and your imported drugs will still be illegal under the guise of safety or defeating terrorism or something like that.
BTW, H (which is pretty much as "black" as you can get) is pretty much free now, compared to what it was 30 years ago. Still, plenty of money to be made.
1q2w3e4r5t6y7u8i9o0pqawsedrftgthyjukilo;p'azsxdcf
Until I bid higher than the government for the Marines. I hope you welcome your new overlord.
paintball
I've struggled for a long time trying to find a suitable replacement for our aging T1. We pay $600/mo. for a full T1 with around 15 static IP addresses.
That's only SLIGHTLY cheaper than what we were paying in 1993.
Everything else in the technological world has gotten cheaper. Cellphones, computers, printers, even residential connectivity is better than what most businesses can get (speed and price).
Before anyone suggests DSL or Cable; both options in my area do not offer static IP.
Telcos suck.
-ted
to each other without the &%#&% baby bells?
For years, no provider would bring any kind of high speed internet to my town [despite its relatively high percapita incomes] because the subscriber density was low. DSL has never penetrated to most of our neighborhoods and we have no fiber. Cell phones go dead around here too...hilly and people are too snooty to tolerate a cell tower in THEIR back yard.
So some of us got together and purchased a fractional T1 connection and started going house to house with shares of that connection. This scheme was dropped when comcast finally turned on the cable modem support in the cable that had long been in town. But having a monopoly on high speed internet has meant Comcast can [and does] raise the monthly charge.
How can the phone co. legally stop us from setting up WiFi in a cell configuration with a few transmitters and links? Verizon is going to drag its feet bringing fiber here just like it did on the DSL [and for the same reason] so I say screw'em. If they think neighboring towns are a more lucrative market, fine but if technology exists that is reliable, needs no wires [and the townies happen to be able to afford], I don't see how they could stop us from providing ourselves a service that they, the telcos, refuse to provide.
SLASHDOT: news for people who can't concentrate on work or have no life at all and got tired of yelling back at the TV.
1.Private business are more efficient than goverrment.
The scale of accountabiity: decide how accountable a private busines must be (to the public, which is represented in government) and regulate the business to get that accountability.
The scale of accountaility has:
On one hand a truly free private business.
On the other hand a fully regulated private business.
Extra regulation = extra overhead.
When the overhead costs more than the savings from (1), the business should be government owned to reduce regulating costs.
If I were one of the bell companies, I would be pretty careful before interfering with the work of anyone named Vinnie Sinatra.
Just trying to picture it...
Excellent point! I think it is entirely appropriate for municipal communities to install and own their own fiber networks. Then they can lease the lines to service providers who would bid for the privilege of serving the community.
Here in the US, when telephone service was deregulated (in the name of increased competition and lower prices), my service become more expensive. When cable tv was deregulated (in the name of increased competition and lower prices), my service became more expensive. The airline industry was deregulated and fares are less expensive as a result, however, most of the major carriers are in ruins. Deregulation = good?
Here's a clue... when someone needs to write a FAQ about it, the original poster's point has been proven.
This is what the 'RIGHT WINGERS' don't want you to know. They reply with propoganda that government will only hurt broadband when in fact most monopolies of this countries have been private companies.
.50 back and getting .25 in tax advantages. So they give .25 and get credit for giving $1.00.
You have the right/left slant 180 degrees out of phase. The right wing position would be deregulate and competition is good. The left wing position is to regulate and control the market. The situation with broadband is fairly simple:
* Telecom/Cable Company spent millions building out a fiber and copper network five years ago.
* Said network is basically obsolete the day it goes on line.
* Costs fall, technology improves so building a new network is a better deal over five or ten years for the end user customer than using the freshly built obsolete one. So for municipalities, universities and even large corporations, it's better to make your own.
* Every private fiber build out cuts into telecom company's topline of income (topline would mean sales). Lower topline makes having a profitable bottom line next to impossible.
* Government has created a regulatory structure that protects investments in network build outs because no one in their right mind would fund them without some kind of guarantee of return. Thus, the regulations that are preventing a lot of the new high bandwith and wireless build outs.
There you have it. Now instead of bellyaching about right and left wing, why not look for a way to let all parties win on this:
* Get the telecom company involved as an investor in the buildout. If the telecom sees $millions in monthly bills for a DSL market, you are going to have to find a way to show them how this investment will return the same bottom line to investors that their DSL buildout would. If the telecom doesn't have the cash to invest up front, find ways they can invest with in kind or even cashflow. Basically what you are doing is letting the telecom get a piece of the action in return for having them not disrupt the startup.
* Make sure the local customer is going to get what they want. Less expensive and/or better, faster bandwith. That doesn't mean you have to lowball everyone (this is a huge problem with municipal networks - they sell at 1/2 the price or less of commercial carriers).
* Investors - make sure that there is an appropriate ROI. Don't build something that will have to be sold to pay off creditors and leave the investors with an empty bag.
My question is what are they going to do as digital LF spread spectrum starts to come into it's own... Wired telecom and wireless are going to be on a collision course in the next five years, and air is a lot less expensive than wires or fiber. Air is slower... for now.
They are trying to crush competition ! They don't want poor folk to get broadband because it cuts into profit margin !
LOL. Please. Everything isn't about class warfare. They don't want to give away their services. There are many cases where private/public coolitions have developed that subsidize broadband connections for less affluent people. The telecoms in a lot of cases even donate to these groups - for them it's giving a dollar, getting
Solving problems requires you look beyond simple ideologies and stereotypes and find ways to make everyone at the table win. When you only see two ways (righ/left, rich/poor, capitalist/socialist) to get something done, you are faced with a "sucker's choice." Probably close to 99% of all scams, bad deals and rip-offs come dressed as a sucker's choice. But, people buy into them because it's easier than thinking for yourself.
-- $G
My opinion is in the telco market (which includes broadband) monopoly is inefficient & the more monopoly the more inefficient the delivery of services are.
I live in Czech Republic, where (until recently) we had a govt-owned telco monopoly and boy, did it suck - long waiting lists for everything, high prices.
About two years ago, the monopoly on wire lines was softened somewhat, allowing alternative operators. Guess what? Prices have dropped & service quality has risen. The Telecom (wire govt monopoly telco) people actually started going door to door, trying to persuade the customers NOT to unsubscribe their lines (incredible, but true (although their attitude was less-than-customer-friendly)).
Back when we had one operator to rule them all (sorry, couldn't resist the pun ;)), it was NOT "rolling out the latest 'n greatest in buzzwords network wise" - actually, it was doing pretty much nothing except maintaining the existing network. I guess this is not Singapore.
btw: "voting something out" is quite a tedious process. Once you grant a government monopoly, it's nearly impossible to "vote it out." The attempts to "vote out" the telco monopoly in Czech Rep. has been going on for about 10 years now, with no end in sight - why would a government willingly give away a part of its power?
The problem with this is the same as with construction. The government highers the lowest bidder to build all its buildings, and you know what? You get what you pay for. Having policies that the people can decide would be a good thing, but who is going to ensure they're being followed? The government, what is left of it, would still have to employ some body to oversee the contractors to determine their compliance. It would have to be the same checks and balances that exist today (Ex: Internal Affairs to the police), but there would be more room for corruption and negligence from the disassociation between those doing the job and why they do it. Now, the police and firefighters work because that's what they want to do with their lives, help people, but how would that change if they were just contractors? With no promise of work after the next bid, and already having to work for less so their company can be low bidder, how much will the worker care about his job over his paycheck?
Generally, I get bored with my replies and give up on making sense halfway through.
The point missed is that if the local businesses cannot provide adequate services that citizens want then the government can take the inititive if it is supported by the people; this is simply democracy in action. If the citizens support spending tax dollars on cheaper, localized broadband, then it is their right.
is because there arent any apps for it, dumbass.
ipv6 isnt deployed because it would make ISPs irrelevant? whatever.
beyond me how you got a +5 for just making shit up. you need a serious whomping with a clue-by-four. as do the clueless morons who modded you up.
Here in Canada ...
Aye, there's the rub. You live in Canada, lucky dog. Me, I live in Minnesota -- the last, sad, tattered remnant of what used to be a liberal state in the Land of the Free.
-kgj
-kgj
I wish someone would disclose how much the ISP's pay for DSL service which they resell to the public. All I ever hear is this crap about "below cost." "Cost" is a very flexible term, and without some indication of the accounting policies for shared expenses, it is meaningless.
If it were legal, it would just be another white powder stimulant, like sugar.
Too bad Coca-Cola switched to high fructose corn syrup.
Remove the water from that high-fructose corn syrup, and I'll bet you dollars to donuts that the remaining solids are white, and easily powdered.
-kgj
-kgj
They are a business, to make money.. so they are protecting their turf..
Its how business works.. or you dont remain in business long.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Expect to see foot dragging in this area (fiber to the home) until major political pressure come down on congress as a result of the U.S. being at 1 or 2 average Mb/s to the home vs 100mb or even 1Gb in Asia.
The way things work in the U.S. is that nothing gets done (well...REALLY done) until there is panic in congress due to a story in the press declaring some disaster about the U.S. not being able to compete (like the story about the U.S. being behind in supercomputing)...once a story like that occures, then you have congressional hearings, interviews on meet the press and so on...
If pot, etc, is legalized, you'll see an enormous tax placed on it almost overnight and your imported drugs will still be illegal under the guise of safety or defeating terrorism or something like that.
Agreed.
In the case of pot, if it were legal, everyone who had a mind could grow their own for approximately free. Growing enough pot to keep oneself stoned for a years takes only a modicum of space and effort. Many people wouldn't, of course -- they're just buy a pack at the liquor store. (Who grows their own tobacco any more?)
In the case of cocaine, I suppose users (talking US/Canada/Euro citizens here, not Quechua indians) could grow their own, but I think (not sure about this) you need a lot of land and a lot of plants to get a little bit of toot. It's definitely not a project you build into a closet.
Same again for opiates -- lotsa plants for a bit of goo.
Then there are synthetics -- no citizen is going to brew his own Prozac, or whatever.
If the easily-cultivated (see "sativa") plant-based drugs were legalized, I predict a rise in synthetic, hard-to-manufacture drugs; along with the suppression of harder-to-grow imports.
-kgj
-kgj
If pot was legalized, I wouldn't pay tax because I'd have a big honking garden of it.
For the record, I have no problem with others using the same right-of-way, but if they are all selling the same technology, then they are likely just going to drive up the costs by laying redundant infrastructure. (some redundancy would be good). The question is, is the increase in average cost (since more providers means fewer customers to split the fixed costs over) offset by the other benefits of competition. The answer depends on the nature of the demand for the particular service.
----- Question authority, but not ours. Hate the man, but we're not him.
No, it just means the question is frequently asked. It has no bearing on whether the question is meaningful or whether the answer is complex. A FAQ for elementary school kids could include the two times table. Does that mean that it's complicated? Or that 5 year olds are likely to ask the results until they learn it for themselves?
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Try using a distro made in this century, and you won't have those problems.
"I might have made a tactical error in not going to a physician for 20 years." -- Warren Zevon
1: Offend big telephone company who wants all the opportunities and none of the regululations, and makes promises only to break them as soon as possible afterwards.
2: Lawyers arrive.
3: Offend big software company who wants all the money and no competition.
4: More lawyers arrive.
5: Collect occupancy and sales taxes from all those hotel rooms and meals purchased.
6: Profit!
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
The FCC is supposed to enforce the Telecom Act, and it is supposed to follow the Administrative Procedures Act in doing so. This means that major decisions have to be done in the open, with a public Comment period. Sure, they can try to ignore the Comments, but the Record they create helps on appeal. The Courts in general do not like this FCC, which tends to be viewed as a bunch of cowboys.
There are some urgent Dockets open now at the Wireline [prevention-of] Competition Bureau (WCB). Two, from BellSouth and Verizon, call for their DSL service (and ATM and Frame Relay, in VZ's case, and possibly T1 and T3 leased line in at least BellSouth's case) to be reclassified as "private", rather than "common carriage". This means that they will be under no obligaton whatsoever to allow competing ISPs, like Speakeasy and Earthlink, to use them! (Their excuse: Cable doesn't haveta so they doan wanna.) Since cable (never a common carrier by law) doesn't provide an alternative, most ISPs will be shut off from their customers and thus put out of business. (Dial-up might remain open, but they're working on it, believe me. I'm in the middle of it.) If they do deign to allow an independent ISP onto their wire, it won't be subject to protections against discrimination or "unreasonable" pricing, which are part of the legal definition of common carriage.
In other words, you'll get two ISPs to choose from, the cable company and the ILEC, and that's it, and they will NOT be required, as unregulated ISPs, to even allow you to connect to the sites you choose. Verizon Online has been blocking tons of legitemate mail lately, for instance, in a profoundly broken anti-spam move. (If it ain't coming from a US server, it's probably spam, they think.)
So if you want a choice of ISPs, COMMENT to the FCC. It's done on line using their Electronic Comment Filing System (ECFS). Go to http://www.fcc.gov/ , then click (top of page) E-filing, then go to ECFS, then read some filed Comments, then add your own. A "brief comment" is easy, just type into the web form, or upload a Word/WP/PDF document. No lawyer necessary.
Docket numbers to plug in to ECFS:
04-405 : BellSouth petition to not be a common carrier. Still open for REPLY COMMENTS, not Comments. (A Reply Comment mentions an already-filed Comment, typically to rebut or add to it. But it's a pretty loose distinction.)
04-440 : Verizon's "me too" petition to not be a common carrier. Open to Comments.
04-416 : Qwest's Petition to be treated as a "non-dominant carrier" in DSL. This doesn't cut off ISPs entirely but treats them as a competitive carrier like Covad, with much looser rules about pricing, for instance. (As dominant providers, they can set their own price, but have to file more paperwork to change it, with more notice.) This docket closes to Comments TOMORROW, January 6, 2005 (a one day extension from the original date).
Will Team Slashdot come through?
Late 70's ... you could buy a small country with $30, we know. Then inflation happened and you couldn't anymore.
....
Now, only the CIA can afford a small country. Grrr
-kgj
-kgj
I wish municipalities quickly adopt WiMax and get over this broadband hump. Granted it may not be their most ideal solution but it will surely be cheaper than laying cable and competing with the Bell/Cable duopoly.
as things go that's quite remarkable, afterall it took nearly 5 decades for many pundits to realise that the creation of Israel was a historical mistake
Umm.. what? How is that relevent? Are you just looking for a 'mistake'? I hate to be one to jump on any remark critical of Israel, but why do you bring it up?
To discuss your off topic comparison, IMO the real mistake was when Great Britain created the mandate of Palestine (and all those other previously nonexistant countries) in the first place.
"They're even running interference on municipalities who are trying to build their own fiber networks!"
Call me crazy but didn't state run business(communism) fail due to inefficiency? Obviously capitalism isn't perfect but take a hard look at the double digit unemployment in Europe right now for example. Why not have the government get into the car manufacturing business too?
Free markets create innovation better than centralized planning. That's good for you as a consumer even if it takes a little while longer to materialize without the govt.
What if Digg added local news and a Slashdot inspired comment karma system? ---
http://houndwire.com
When the local Public Utility District in Grant County (Central Washington State) invited local ISPs to partner with them to bring fiber to the home, we all thought it was a great idea. But after three years of broken promises we discovered that they were funelling public money to favored outside businesses via secret contracts in a scheme that appeared to many of us like an attempt to control the entire system; end-users and all. This would have been in direct violation of the legislation which allowed these Utilities (which are municipalities under Washington State law) to enter the telecommunications industry.
Expenses were hidden, extra employees hired, an expensive Network Operations Center was built, money from tax-free bonds was spent in a possibly unlawful way (an SEC investigation is underway), and business plans drawn up with very little regard to reality. Now they are in the middle of a bunch of lawsuits (one of which, strangely enough, is to recover money they practically forced onto the business that received it). Sooner or later there will be anti-trust litigation as well.
Somewhere around $160 million in public money was spent (no one knows exactly how much) to fiber up about 30% of a rural county (4300 customers so far) and now we discover that even 50 years wouldn't pay for this system unless the charges were around $80 a month.
The reality of this (to use a favorite phrase from one of the elected officials who allowed this to happen) is that bureaucrats don't make good businessmen. There is a reason the Soviet Union went bankrupt, folks, and that reason is "incompetence".
While it may seem unfair that private business fights the encroachment of municipalities into their turf, it seems unfair to the businesses to use their tax money to put them out of the game.
No one ever had to evacuate a city because the solar panels broke!
A couple decades ago, my church in New Jersey built a building (we'd been without one for a while.) "Somehow" the township bureaucrats "forgot" to tell the county road department that we wanted to use the nearest sewer connection, so when they paved the street they didn't leave us access to it, and we're not allowed to break open the road for five years. "What a shame - you'll just have to connect to the next connection a couple hundred feet away and pump uphill." So we got a bid of $4000 to do this basically unnecessary work, and found that "No, what a shame, that contractor's not approved by *our* township, you've got to use an *approved* contractor", and it seems the two approved contractors wanted $12K and $25K for it. At that point our building committee guy started talking about going to the town council and maybe the state about it and walked out, and the building department met him out in the parking lot and said they might be able to come to some arrangement about it. They never explicitly asked for a bribe, and we absolutely never volunteered to pay one, which had a lot to do with why they'd caused this problem in the first place, though I suspect our contractor might have had to kick back a bit of money in return for a special permit. And everything else we did with the building got lots of extra inspection, and we ended up having to buy an amazingly fancy fire alarm system to handle the new regulations that kept being discovered, because we never did offer them a bribe or ask them which contractors we "really ought to" be dealing with.
So yes, local governments absolutely will reject deals that might be "profitable", and yes, they can stop utilities (regulated or unregulated) from using existing right-of-way, and even if they're not personally corrupt or greedy for town government revenues, they're still typically not competent at telecomm.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Linksys cards with the Broadcom chips are not well supported (if they work at all). You have to use the NDIS program to use windows drivers. It is a problem with a manufacturer (broadcom) not wanting to have its product (the chips) used by any system other than Windows. It is their right, so just never buy their stuff. (On the other hand the Linksys WRT54G runs on Linux, go figure). The linksys cards that use Prism chips work right out of the box.
totally owned him with facts.
what's funny is all the slashdorks who whine about how south korea has such good internet connectivity, and point at how they should be a model for the USA. totally neglecting the fact that south korea is one of the most densely populated countries on the planet.
I just told you that the SSA is much more efficient than its corporate counterpart, and you respond by manufacturing your on little corporate-loving reality.
eat shiat and bark at the moon
Those dogs at SBC offer DSL in the small village of Mendocino six miles down the road from me, but...
They are resisting offering it in my town (Fort Bragg, CA) which has waaaaay more potential subscribers.
I'm PISSED!
Guess I'm stuck with dialup forever because SBC can't seem to actually serve their customer base other than dialup around here.
...I see why you're called 'caveman' now.
Lawyers can and ARE leeches on the process - no matter how 'well meaning'. And some are well meaning, but the fact remains that lawyering IS A BUSINESS FIRST - like any other.
A terrific example of the problem (wipe away that foam around your mouth first and read calmly), is that the legal profession is continually one-upping themselves in civil liability suits. It may seem like gravy when you sue McDonald's for a spilled coffee and get 2.7 million but it's not free after all.
It's the same with medical malpractice suits (some of which are WAY out of control); insurance rates go up for EVERYONE. Punitive damages aren't hurting these companies more than they are hurt everyone else. And let's not get started about how some of these ambulance chasers have attacked school districts and/or gov't agencies over the stupidest things that cost real money.
You know good lawyers? That's good to hear. My general, unwashed, unexperienced impression of them isn't so hot. That opinion will no doubt change when I'm again in need of one (to defend myself against another one), but don't blame me for their bad first impressions...
"...Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam..."
In comparison, finding anything out about similar products from Broadcom is like pulling teeth from a T. Rex. (Yes, I know they're all fossilized - that's the point.) I could get some very basic information, but that's about it.
Mind you, there are worse. Although DDC provides Linux drivers for some of their cards, they're closed-source binary-only, so you'd better be using the right kernel. Other manufacturers won't release any details at all, and it's not uncommon for such hardware to be totally non-standard.
(One of the chief culprits of this was a UK company called Digital Research, not to be confused with any of the multitude of "Digital Research" companies in the US. They built some very nice hardware, but it tended to only work with other hardware they made. As they were the only ones who knew how anything worked, there was pretty much 100% lock-in.)
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
The company that provides the infrastructure should be prohibited from offering services on it. By that I mean there should be a regulated, subsidized (as necessary) company that just provides the copper/fiber/whatever to your home/business, and the physical location where these lines terminate (CO). Everything else -- dial tone, broadband, you name it -- will be offered by some other company. Basically one big colo, no incumbent provider
My Point Exactly, Although there are FAQ's no doubt about installing drivers in windows, they don't consist of recompiling the kernal
Thats more information then i need to know to get it to work in Windows. I don't give a shit about all that, and I shouldn't have to have detailed knowledge of every chip, function, and atom that I interact with.
Here I thought the I stood for INCUMBENT all these years!
Just to be clear, an "incubant" is the resident of an incubator... not a dweller in a cubicle, or a victim of the Incubus Demon (that priapic visitor to vulnerable Catholics in the night, not to be confused with Father John Thomas).