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Cable Equal Access Case Goes to Supreme Court
DCTooTall writes "The FCC has ruled that Cable High-Speed Internet is an Information Service, and therefore not subject to the same equal access regulations that govern DSL. Brand-X Networks sued the FCC for equal access to the Cable Networks and won. The FCC appealed the decision and next Tuesday the case goes to the Supreme Court. The Telco's have repeatedly used the current FCC stance on Cable Broadband in their fight to get the same monopoly on DSL. This case has the potential to not only open the Cable networks to competition, but also prevent the Telco's from further attempts on limiting DSL options."
You should be receiving your subpoena for my lawsuit demanding equal access to first posts in 5 to 7 business days.
DSL is theft anyway. I don't know what insane trickery is involved in allowing voice AND data go over the same medium, but I don't like it. It smacks of devil-worship.
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
If cable companies paid to put in their infrastructure, why should they be required to share it? Or, worded differently, did the govt. help pay to put in their system?
Could someone please explain this "regulations" thing to non-americans?
The following statement is true
The preceding statement is false
is the FCC. They started this new philosophy of "let's deregulate, and all our problems will go away," and look what happened. The media sources are consolidating, and the telcos are consolidating. Did the FCC WANT this to happen? Sometimes I think so, since it seems so damn obvious that it would. Why would you EVER want to monopolise the cable and telephone lines? How is DSL NOT an information service? The FCC has to recognise that whether it's IP over coax or fibre or phone line or WHATEVER, it's still internet service. They've just really turned the wrong way in the last few years, and it's hurting us all.
Take off every sig. For great justice.
If the cable companies are forced to open their networks, it would hopefully allow one to eventually obtain "naked cable." I'd like cable internet access, but the price for non-subscribers is $20 over their already inflated price.
An effective signature identifies a particular user amongst a base of thousands.
I hope it happens. It'd be nice to finally be able to get better than 2mbit down and 256kbit up.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
One possible bad outcome from this is that the FCC does not have the authority to regulate any of it. ... and the Phone company ( was one big one, then baby bells and now ...) and the cable companies and do what ever they want .....the courts are going more and more big bisness..
The Technology exists for the Telco's to improve DSL, such as ADSL2 and ADSL2+... not to mention Reach Extended ADSL.... The big problem is the Telco's have been slow to upgrade or really take full advantage of the available technology. They have repeatedly gone to the FCC crying that Cable doesn't need to share their lines, and that being forced to abide by the Equal Access rules it is holding them back. As a result, there have been many cases (such as the recent Anti-muni FCC ruling, or even Bellsouth's recent "Naked DSL" victory) in which a Bell has used the fact that Cable doesn't have to share in order to have a ruling in their favor, allowing them more in the way of monopoly control over DSL technology.
"High-speed Internet connections are not telephones," HA!
While this could be a good thing for customers there are several technical considerations to look at. 1. There is not enough upstream bandwidth in a typical cable plant for several providers to provide their own service over a seperate cmts. 2. If multiple service providers try to offer their brand of "service" over the same cmts there wouldn't be a difference in service from what there is today (Except content) If one provider tried to sell a higher bandwidth package it would affect customers from all different providers on the same cmts. 3. Who pay's to maintain, power, and house the cmts ? The way that dsl ir provided (Each ISP installing their own DSLAM) works great because there is a seperation of where the last mile to the customer terminates - The only leased telco facilty is the copper from the service address to the CO. If service providers had to share the same DSLAM and had a limit of bandwidth that could be provided dsl would be a huge disaster.
As far as I can see, the issue here whether the cable network should be opened in the same was as the phone network. However, isn't it the case that the phone network is considered to be a public asset whereas the cable network is a private one? This is certainly the case in the UK where the phone network is a public network that is gradually being made open to any internet supplier. However, there's no reason that I can see that Telewest or NTL should be expected to open a network that they put there own private money into. Is this not exactly the same thing? If it is, although one might like the cable company to open it's networks, it doesn't seem to me that there is any obligation or regulation that should expect it.
The FCC is basically offering the cable companies a de facto monopoly on cable internet in order to ensure that more people can get connected and the size of the network is increased. After all, if the cable company has a monopoly, the only way it can really grow is to hook up more people.
But if, on the other hand, other companies are permitted to use the network, the cable companies may feel that expanding their network is not worth the cost, thus preventing people from ever getting high-speed internet.
Personally, I think it's a relatively hard decision to make. Allowing the monopoly screws over those people who already can get cable internet, but offers the greatest incentive to extend access to more people. Not allowing the monopoly gives cheaper prices to those with cable internet, but pretty much ensures that the networks won't get expanded, especially to more rural areas.
Perhaps a compromise of a limited-time monopoly would be best. Cable companies get a 5-year monopoly on new networks, and afterwards must open them up to competition.
Here, let me download you a copy.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
but I've never gotten "information" from my cable modem provider. All they sell is a pipe and the information comes from elsewhere. It's not that much different than using the telephone, in which case the "information" comes from the people I call, not the phone company.
Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
I'm going to break up your argument into two issues. That of sharing the lines and that of having two different companies playing under different rules.
Sharing the lines is something most are in favor of but I am not going to get into that.
Right now Telecos are forced by regulation to share their lines that they laid down and maintain for a fee that is around cost. That gives no one a reason to upgrade the networks. And BTW they are working to upgrading to fibre not measley ADSL2+. Having full control of their own lines meand that they can make a profit sooner and have more incentive to do so. They need to compete with cable, afterall.
Cable, on the other hand, supplies internet as well and is under no compulsion to share in either the internet of TV market. This gives them great reason to expand as they have a captive market on their lines and with a few small upgrades can drive the phone companies out of the business.
Cable offers TV and internet and is looking at doing phone. Telcos do phone and internet and are looking at doing TV. Why should one be forced to open up their lines and not the other for the same service? As for competition, they are already competing with each other (or the Telcos are trying but the forced line issue is incentive to not try) so why not have a level playing field to expand the competition?
Fly me to the moon Let me sing among those stars Let me see what spring is like On jupiter and mars
Most of those questions aren't "still open" in THIS case, which is all the SC would have (correctly) considered.
A modern day witchhunt.
Of course, the former argument sways me more because I don't actually own a cable company. Considering most Americans are like me, I'll bet polls show everyone wants the lines opened.
I'm currently paying US$108/mo for digital standard cable + high speed cable internet from Time Warner. This seems like way too much to me, but I haven't seen any better deals out there. Has anyone else?
I always hate how aprtment complexs always try to tell people that only one type of broadband service is available in their buildings. Liek where I live now, they told me I would have to go through Qwest. Meaning I would have to have Qwest phone service plus shitty Qwest DSL. Instead I called Speakeasy, had Covad come out and install some sort of bypass so I dont' need a phone line, and now i have 6mbit down 768 up with tons of extras for $100 a month, and I can resell the bandwidth on a wireless access point. Screw telcos.
The deal with a common carrier is that a common carrier has to accept anyone's traffic. ie. If the railroad ships wheat for company X then they can not refuse to ship wheat for company Y.
Cable did not start as a common carrier. It started with small providers grabbing signals off the air and stuffing them into the cable to sell to their subscribers. Since they weren't charging the TV stations to get their signals to the subscribers, they weren't acting as common carriers. They weren't charging people to get their signals somewhere.
Telegraph started out as common carrier in that if they sent messages for company X, they had to send messages for company Y.
Telephone is a common carrier because they were forced to be one. I think that will happen to the cable companies too. The minute they started dabbling in internet services and telephone, they opened the gate and they won't be able to shut it.
This case has the potential to not only open the Cable networks to competition, but also prevent the Telco's from further attempts on limiting DSL options."
Or, it could allow the Court to redress what it may see as a fact no longer in existence. They could decide that equal access is unenforceable regardless, in which case the telcos would be allow to prevent competitors from using their equipment.
You can never tell in these cases because the SC can be thinking anything. But I do agree, it will have an impact.
The FCC is supposedly there to help the public out by regulating phones, internet, RF, etc ... Why would they appeal this sort of thing? It should be blatently obvious to anyone that opening up cable lines to outside companies is in the public interest (even if the cable companies gripe and do a half-ass job at it). I mean, sure, they can defend themselves in the first suit just to defend themselves. But why appeal it? This is ridiculous. The operation of the cable companies as monopolies is obvious ... with their erroneous fees here and there, their slow service, the whole "wait 60 days until you get service again", bundling services so you can't get internet unless you have cable, etc, etc. None of this stuff would be as bad as it currently is if there was true competition, because they would be out of business at the drop of a hat! I think the FCC positions need to be elected or something, so at least there is SOME pressure to serve the public interest.
Isn't the local monopoly status of most cable companies granted by the local muncipality? Doesn't the local muncipality have the power to insist on common carrier status for Internet access? I know that more savvy communities used to hold the cable companies for community access channels, video equipment, classes, etc.
Is this just another situation where the elected officials are not working in the best interest of their constituents?
jh
Having both, I can say that they both have their advantages.
DSL - static IP address, more upstream bandwidth, liberal use policy
Cable modem - more downstream bandwidth, and in a few cases about 2 hops closer to key backbones
Would I give up either? Not unless I can no longer afford to. They're both down up to 3 days a month, and thankfully those 3 days haven't overlapped yet. Plus, since I use a real linux router, and not some lameass linksys piece of shit, I can make use of both simultaneously. Not just failover, mind you, but round-robin connection marking through both. Can I download a single large file, making use of both? Not yet...
But supposing I scrape together enough talent to patch wget, I might be able to download a piece of the file over each, simultaneously.
So, let's just stop with the cable vs. dsl bullshit already, folks. Whichever you can get, or if both, whichever suits you, is best. It wasn't so long ago that we were all struggling along on 28.8k modems anyway.
This is silly.. if you don't like the cable company, work to change it.
EVERY cable company must have a contract with the local city/town to operate.
I worked at a public access TV station in a small town during this. They are usually 3-7 year contracts, the cable comittee is usually made up of people from the town/city.
Our managed to get MediaOne (at the time) to give free cable modems to all the schools, as well as free cable service, on top of what they were required to give the public access TV station. They also had to agree to offer high speed access across the entire town in 2 years or less.
It came VERY close to dumping them and going with Adelphia.. if that happened then everybody in the the town would switch to Adelphia and MediaOne (now Comcast) would have been OUT.
Also, you can get Earthlink service over cable via Comcast..
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To me, an information service sends data one way, from provider to consumer. A telecommunications service allows two-way communication.
The Internet's most popular service is e-mail.
What if the Postal Service was (privatized and) declared an information service? Would I no longer be able to send letters to some addresses because they belong to a different carrier service? Would I have to pay extra postage for cross-carrier service?
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
Does this mean that my Cable company will provide me with a connection and that I could choose a different ISP. To get for example a line where I could run servers and a web hosting farm out of my basement? If that is the case I welcome the change but it would be bad in the short term for the Cable company and I predict that my service would suffer over the short term.
-- Ecks
ILECs complain that they can't make any money. They all want in the long distance and wireless business, not the margin challenged local business and whine about how legislation prevents that and they do their best to use passive aggressive behaviour like dragging their feet on third party DSL installations.
Unlike the post office, telcos don't have to provide service to remote locations, so they don't. Residents of remote areas usually set up co-ops to run their local phone service. The strange thing is that they typically have much better service because of it even though their physical costs are higher.
Putting these two observations together, here's what I propose:
Force all ILECs to sell their local exchanges to the residents of that exchange who run them as co-ops. Allow the ILECs to change their business model to compete with long distance providers. Allow individual residents to choose from any long distance provider who's willing to hook up to their local exchange.
Do the same thing with cable providers. The local cable 'exchange' runs cables to the neighbourhood, and individual users get to choose, which cable content providers they get hooked up to with video, radio and ISP service being independently selectable.
This system allows for competition on content and services, while putting the part of the system that needs to be a monopoly in the hands of the people who are most interested in and affected by the actions of the monopoly.
There are lots of details left out here, but this should get the germ of the idea across.
Signatures are a waste of bandwi (buffering...)
The problem is that the Telco's originally promised Fiber several years ago, and they keep going to the FCC trying to change their plans...using the Cable situation as their reasons. For instance, many Telcos originally said they would do fiber to the house... then they said to the curb.... and now I think Verizon has said they will only run Fiber to the remote terminal. If nothing more, this will remove the Telco's ability to blame things on the cable company's ability to play by different rules. And it will prevent a Duo-opoly between the telco and the cable company.
I live in a region that Comcast monopolizes. They've been doing all they can to kill RCN who has tried to offer competitive rates and have succeeded by keeping them 30 miles away from here. It's just too much power to give a company if they supply you with phone, cable, internet, news media. If I wanted that I would just have moved to one of the last remaining communist countries where I could be given all of that by one source, the government.
sportsdot
The slashcode sports site
Right now Telecos are forced by regulation to share their lines that they laid down and maintain for a fee that is around cost.
This was a particularly humorous argument when SBC was arguing that a competitor should not be about to use their lines to offer intra-state long distance. Amusingly, the competitor in question was AT&T - you know, the company that *actually* laid those lines, long ago.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
I live in Maryland and all I can get in my area is Comcast. I would love to be able to get Adelphia. A friend of mine has it and she pays less for both cable(with HBO) and internet through them than I pay for just extended basic alone.
Technoli
At 5 Mbit, my cable broadband outstrips anything the telcos can offer, and without that embarrassing DSL 18,000-33,000 ft range problem.
Not for some, apparently.
Besides, is it no longer a monopoly when the cable company still owns the HFC, but leases access out to a reseller? I fail to see how that's getting rid of a monopoly...
I thought cable was already opened for broadband competition. Here in Central Florida, there is only one cable provider in most areas (Bright House Netorks, with a bit of overbuild with Adelphia and or Cox in some areas), but where broadband ISPs are concerned, everywhere that Bright House Networks offers service, you have the choice of any of 4 ISPs.
Bright House themselves doesn't have a 'house brand' (Road Runner is considered by some to be the house brand, but Bright House owns no stake in Road Runner as far as I know), but I thought this was exactly the thing that caused them to add other providers 2-3 years ago.
What did I miss? Is it the case with Bright Hosue that they didn't necessarily have to allow competition but decided to anyway?
Long signatures suck.
In all honesty, why can't we just focus on wireless? Once the wires are gone, and infrastructure is just a mesh of hubs every 25 miles or something, then competition will reign supreme.
Right?
Huh? Cable systems don't either, neither do landline phones.. They're in charge of communications, not just broadcasting.
As for limiting access.. is a double edged sword. If anyone can run a server and any computer zombie can do whatever it wants upstream it could drive the effective bandwidth way down for other users. OTOH, I agree that if you're paying for Internet you should get Internet, not some subset of the Internet that Comcast feels you're entitled to.
I was in the video store once, and a couple of guys were talking in the checkout line about movies. One asked the other if he had seen Fahrenheit 9/11, and the other said: "No way, I wouldn't see anything by that commie."
I wonder what he thought "commie" meant anyway. I would have loved to hear him explain it.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
Wireless can't get the raw speed that "wired" can. The maximum throughput on a single strand of fibre is 20Terra Bits per fibre. Wireless also suffers from more interference problems and limited bandwidth (RF bandwidth,not speed) that you can access at one time. It is hard enough for TV stations to get satelite recievers that will do 36Mhz of bandwidth at 80Mbits. And that is recieve only. 802.11a/b/g are pressing the limits they can do in speed over their radio spectrum at those power levels. Wired, on the other hand, is about to come out with 10GBits over copper alone and fibre,as I said before, can do much more.
Wireless is just to slow to be of much use in applications where you need speed such as gaming and streaming video. For voice, it is barely adequate.
Fly me to the moon Let me sing among those stars Let me see what spring is like On jupiter and mars
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Here in Canada, the former-monopoly telco's with their monopoly-supplied last mile runs have long had to share their systems (at federally approved prices) to DSL resellers/competitors.
NOW that's also being extended to Cable, cable companies are now having to allow other providers onto their monopoly-supplied last mile cables.
AND NOW this summer, you will be able to get DSL without having to have a phone, zero extra cost. Of course Bells are also taking that very moment to start rolling out their own VOIP solutions - but basically they've all realized they need to compete in the future, not try and desparately hold on to old technologically inferior monopolies.
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Actually the DSL vs Cable speed and price, which is a function of "competition" is only part of what the case is about. More important is the fact that as an information service Cable is able to refuse to carry certain CONTENT. This allows discrimination in terms of what you, as a user, can offer yourself, hence the restrictive terms about running your own server, etc. Setting up Server farms and creating on-line movie rental stores is impossible - the cable company has locked you out. There are other ramifications - the thing is, when you eliminate open and equal access you can never really say what would have evolved. The internet only evolved because the telcos were not ALLOWED to say what the content of the traffic was.
I have nothing to hide. So, why are you spying on me?
We will focus on whatever makes sense from a business perspective. Right now it makes sense for me to focus on wireless. If I am forcd to open up my network to competitors, it will no longer make sense as I am taking all the risk. If it works, the competition can step in and demand access to my network at cost.
There is something to be said for opening up networks where exclusive rights of way have been granted to a single entity, however, if it is possible for both joe and I to run our own fiber, cable, copper, or twine, there is no reason why joe should be forced to let me use his tin can network.
CP
Get a router to do that for you, like the Xincom XC-DPG502.
Quote from PCMall.com: Allows you to use both WAN ports simultaneously, increasing your available bandwidth. You can set load balance type by Packets, Bytes RX+TX and Sessions
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I'd really appreciate more competition for Cable internet. I'm too far for any DSL options, and i've gotten really annoyed with the cable connection from Charter. When I forst got the service, I was really happy with it. 1.5mbps down and 768kbps up. You'd like to think that years after the original service prices would decrease, and faster bandwidth options would open up. Instead the reverse has happened. Prices gradually went up, and bandwidth varied. For a while I was getting 2mbps down and 128kbps up. The increase in down bandwidth I didn't really care about, but cutting upload bandwidth to 1/6th, that was horrid! They finally relented and changed it to 3mbps down and 256kbps up. The change in download bandwidth hasn't really mattered to me, and the upload bandwidth is still 1/3rd the original rate.
I assume this likely occured because in the first few years, they didn't have too many customers and had plenty of room on the infrastructure, but now that its getting more crowded. I'd hope competition would hopefully encourage spending effort on increasing bandwidth options, even if that requires laying down more lines.
Too many cooks.
I love how many people glom onto this corporate bashing stance of forcing "competition" without any idea of the technical wherewithal involved in making it happen and the degredation of service in the near, mid, and long term.
I've worked for DSL CLECs which had resellers self-branding what they sold for another partner ISP which actually supplied the IPs and had a layer two frame or atm circuit to us and we had one then onward to a partner CLEC which held the facilities where we didn't have a build and from them over ILEC copper to the customer using a customer owned CPE.
Can you say clusterf*ck? I knew you'd try.
Occam's Razor applies here.
On top of this, are we going to legally require the cable companies to give away connections for free? No? Then we can add the charge they give to the competing ISP on to whatever the other ISP charges the customer.
It gets better kids. Think about this... How big are the cable providers' fiber nets? Many of them either own a load of their own or they combine their sizeable assets with others. We're not talking a couple DS3s on a dial-up ISP here, we're talking major OC fiber lines handling hugantic ginormous (thank you Bruce Almighty) amounts of data quite well every day.
I'm supposed to want someone other than my cable company for what reason? So I can say that my last mile is cable but the undersized backhaul is on an overutilized interface on an underpowered Cisco router administered by some nineteen year old cert whore? So that I can say I'm doing business with TWO different entities instead of one? So that I can say my ISP is a mom and pop (or t-shirt wearing crew of Linux geeks) unlike those big corporate cable people (in polo shirts)?
If you want something done right, you use the right tools and methods, and you do it with intent to succeed. You don't host a mission critical commercial web server on a DSL line, you have it hosted professionally on a good pipe. You host a personal vanity server on DSL.
Similarly, my broadband is too important to sacrifice to some so-called competitor's vanity. Even today in DSL we still see ISPs taken seriously whose idea of a NOC is two teens occasionally taking time out from their endless Half-Life game to run pings in five or six windows and don't even know what Matt's Traceroute is, never mind even know how to check the atm traffic on their own router. Such have been contributory to the disasterous collapse of some CLECs. I know, I used to work with such yahoos and was there when they helped down us.
If my grammar and spelling are off, I am [distracted/tired/careless] (take your pick)
I live in the Toronto Ontario (Canada) Area.
I have the exact opposite experience.
Cable is statically assigned dhcp, dsl no.
Cable
Upstream cable 512K
Downstream 3MB
cap 60GB (bidir monthly)
DSL upstream 128K
downstream 1MB
not sure, never hit it.
The truth about Led Zep should never be told on
Would you people please stop using all this money on court cost and use it instead to RUN CABLE AND/OR DSL TO MY HOUSE!
Coder's Stone: The programming language quick ref for iPad
Hmmm, in Bellsouth land, it appears no third party DSL providers have access. If I wanted DSL, I'd *have* to use Bellsouth DSL. So where's the equal access?
Comcast here: $52.95: Basic Digital Cable, that is all your regular channels, all the music channels and Encore/Starz package or whatever that is. $42.95 5 mbps Down & 300k+ Up.. with taxes it comes to like $104/month and change..
Unforturnately the corporations own the Government!!!
Right now Telecos are forced by regulation to share their lines that they laid down and maintain for a fee that is around cost. That gives no one a reason to upgrade the networks. And BTW they are working to upgrading to fibre not measley ADSL2+. Having full control of their own lines meand that they can make a profit sooner and have more incentive to do so. They need to compete with cable, afterall.
This is why i believe the lines themselves should be owned by the state / local goverment. Install the very best there is, and let a reasonable number of providers compete with service. Service would be cable tv, internet and phone. Some would provide only tv, some would offer all three in a package. The fees to maintain can be equally split among all providers.
Cable, on the other hand, supplies internet as well and is under no compulsion to share in either the internet of TV market. This gives them great reason to expand as they have a captive market on their lines and with a few small upgrades can drive the phone companies out of the business.
We have the technology now to merge the phone / cable lines. Why have two seperate lines when you can run all your services over one?
Cable offers TV and internet and is looking at doing phone. Telcos do phone and internet and are looking at doing TV. Why should one be forced to open up their lines and not the other for the same service? As for competition, they are already competing with each other (or the Telcos are trying but the forced line issue is incentive to not try) so why not have a level playing field to expand the competition?
Exactly...with gov't ownership of the lines we can stop this senseless fighting about open access or not and get the companies to do what we want, which is provide a reliable communications service.
I think that would totally level the playing field while not having to rely on penny pinching corportations to finally decide to lie down high speed lines.
You're a pretty sick bastard to call 15 years, working to get his wife the dignity of actual death, a "whim". Or her hopeless coma "life". Or the thought of her perpetuated by machines, bankrupting his family, using resources better spent on patients with hope "inconvenience".
Or to demand for a written will, when he has her word - between spouses. You're probably out there banging the drum over the "sanctity of marriage" when it means hating gays. Scumbag - you prefer Anonymous political posting Cowardice to actual compassion, in the name of fraudulent compassion. Go to hell.
--
make install -not war
Allow the cable company to provide access only (be an IAP) and allow competition by independant service providers (ISPs.)
We need to stop letting entities with monopolies of any kind try to play the free market card. They are not operating in a free market. Therefore it is reasonable for the government to seek to regulate their market to the benefit of the public. I have doubts that the government can do this, but I also have doubts that a company with a monopoly advantage will do better for the public.
all the best,
drew
FreeMusicPush If you want to see more Free Music made, listen to Free
In New York State all cable franchises are non-exclusive. Exclusive franchises are not permitted by law. In practice, however, you rarely see two or more franchises covering the same area. Most of the cable companies are owned by large MSOs (Multiple Systems Operators). They don't step on each other's toes and small independent operators can't afford the construction costs required to compete with the big guys.
Overall, I think all this competition is good, but when third world countries say they hate American wealth, you have to wonder about a country that is so wealthy and yet so bad at regulating itself that it is easier for us to build three or four identical national infrastructures (at huge expense) to achieve the same purpose than to plan effectively. So finally we get may get decent broadband - a utility that should have been available ten years ago. Aren't we ranked like fifteenth in the world now for providing broadband internet?
I live in the country, and no-shit, I bank at the (wait for it) Hicksville bank.
Anyway, I called comcast for the surrounding area and asked if Cable Internet was available to us. They told us not yet and that they would send a team to investigate the area. They did so and we were told that comcast still declined to lay cable. Too few people, I guess, not to mention the hicks who don't have time fer us city slickers and their fancy-pants computers.
So I called our current subscriber for our 56K (read 42K MAX) dial-up connection and inquired about their DSL service. They informed us that SBC controls the phone lines in our area and we'd have to go through them because SBC will not contract with locl-net to provide DSL. Then, if we decide to use SBC's DSL service, it'd be a long distance call 24/7/365.
So, besides comcasts economic reasoning to refuse to lay cable, I'm also cought between locl-net and SBC's political crap-storm.
Don't get me started on the cost of satellite internet!! ~2600 for 18 months and we already get Sat TV.
You're a pretty sick bastard to call 15 years, working to get his wife the dignity of actual death, a "whim"
Terri's nurse was asked by this "saint", and I quote - "Is the bitch dead yet?"
He was offered a huge sum of money by her parents and a divorce agreement, if he would let them take over her care. He refused. Don't you think her parents would be willing to go along with him if it was in everyone's best interest?
Terri isn't catatonic - she can move around, laughs at jokes, and can speak a few words. Just about the only thing she can't do at all is swallow.
The only issue on the table here is his perverted desire to have her killed. I think you're a pretty sick bastard to take this guy's side.
Your reasonsing is challenged by one important piece of data.
On a purely technical basis, cable modems are clearly superior to DSL modems. But nearly anyone who has used both will tell you that they had better service from their DSL provider.
My theory is that DSL customers can more quickly shift to a new provider, while Cable customers only have the option to shift to DSL.
In theory cable modem technologies would allow Cable Internet providers to have phenomenal download rates (easily 14 MBs or more) by simply using the capabilities inherent in HFC plants. But the only incentive they have is to keep service good enough so that you don't actually shift service. Because changing service away from cable is a major decision it is less of an option.
The net effect, regulation promotes competition in the DSL industry. Not enough, mind you. But even a DSL industry dominated by the wire provider customers do have options. DSL providers cannot ignore that.
He doesn't have to be a "saint" - just a regular person under extraordinary pressure, still doing the right thing. The only place I can find your quote is from an allegation by a nurse - on Fox News. What about the years in court? Where her well funded parents could have convinced a judge, if there were anything to convince? I'm not going to get into my personal experiences with people in comas, and their alarmingly similar reflex reactions to stimuli despite their unconsciousness. Because I'm not her examining doctor, and neither are you. Her doctors, and there have been many, have made a clear medical decision, which has withstood many challenges in court. And even the bribe you mention was declined - obviously proving this is no "whim" of his, and making clear which side is the ethical one.
You're spitting back the pap reverberating in the rightwing vulture media echo chamber. Since you're so riled up, why don't you channel your compassion into helping a brain-injured Iraq veteran, or their family, return to a normal life. Of course you won't - Schiavo and other "compassion" cases are just a way for your to hate people you don't even know, when you've got nothing yourself on the line. Talk about sick "whims".
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make install -not war
Because if I need to call 911 I don't want to have to rely on Time-Warner to get the call through. I'd have more confidence in shouting for help loudly enough to be heard over a mile away at the nearest fire station.
And that's just when a hurricane hasn't taken out the power lines, thus disabling the Time-Warner line as well, a situation in which the telephone line is often still working due to the phone company's big ol' pile of tractor batteries.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
Well weren't YOU the lucky one! And there I was chugging....along....on...my....2400....baud.
So it's statically-assigned dynamic?
Because if I need to call 911 I don't want to have to rely on Time-Warner to get the call through. I'd have more confidence in shouting for help loudly enough to be heard over a mile away at the nearest fire station.
The lines are own by the city / state, so fine, pick another phone provider.
And that's just when a hurricane hasn't taken out the power lines, thus disabling the Time-Warner line as well, a situation in which the telephone line is often still working due to the phone company's big ol' pile of tractor batteries.
A hurricane would also likely take out the phone lines as well.
As an FYI, most (all?) cable, power and phone lines are run on the exact same polls...so if the poll goes, so do all three..
"The only place I can find your quote is from an allegation by a nurse - on Fox News."
So? This is from an affidavit filed by the nurse. Its as good or better than any other information.
Watch this video of Terri, and decide for yourself. You could take it either way, of whether she should be laid to rest or not, but I'm sure you'll be convinced that starving her to death is inhumane, and just the wrong thing to do.
You're spitting back the pap reverberating in the rightwing vulture media echo chamber
Look who's talking.
I can't tell from that video whether her damaged brain is moving her around in response to stimuli out of habit. And I've seen people who I've known for years in deep comas, who also demonstrate weird flashes, sometimes complex and lasting for many minutes, of old motor feedbacks. Like opening their eyes, smiling and nodding when their name is called - over and over again, but without any response to any other stimuli. But that's just the reason that I know I am not qualified to determine exactly what Schiavo's condition is - or how hopeless - either from a video or even in person. That's a medical diagnosis made many times over the past 15 years, examined relentlessly in courts. So doctors have made their case, and several judges have made theirs. Now the mob, led by their flagrantly opportunistic politicians, is meddling in this private matter that has been resolved medically.
Yes, I think that starving "her" (body) to death is inhumane. I think they should give her a lethal dose of sedatives or opiates. But the courts are so caught up in the primitive sentimentality of keeping hearts beating once the mind is gone forever, that that is the only available option. Starvation for a couple of weeks is less barbaric than keeping her blood flowing through a vacant body for another 15 years.
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make install -not war
Next Tuesday, March 29th, is also the day on which MGM v. Grokster gets argued. Two 9th Circuit Internet cases on one day.
This post expresses my opinion, not that of my employer. And yes, IAAL.
Living near the coast I've been through hurricanes where the lights didn't work but the phones did, but I've never seen a time when the power went out for any reason and the cable didn't (TVs, VCRs on uninterruptable power supply or generator).
Also, after a hurricane-caused power outage, Time-Warner doesn't get back online until some time after the power company (Progress Energy, formerly Carolina Power and Light) does.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
Perhaps you misunderstood my original post; we SHOULD replace the cable / telco lines with one, with the government owning the lines.
I was talking about how things should be, not how they are.
The cable likely goes out because the head end doesn't have power to recieve thier satilite feeds...so it makes sense that they can't begin to get back onlne until after they get power too.
However that shouldn't affect their phone service, should they offer it.
Cox cable in RI has been offering phone service for a while (i know a friend that had it). It was no more unreliable then a regular phone line.
Yeah, but the fact that it's Time-Warner is plenty of reason not to trust it even if they went out and bought every battery in the world.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
Well, I guess you had a bad experience with them..
Mine was different...they were great in Rochester NY. I don't think the cable modem or CATV went down the 3-4 years i was there, and they even said they don't support a linux router, but then proceeded to assist me with settng mine up.