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1Gbps Broadband Service for Hong Kong
Limax Maximus writes "Hong Kong is planning to launch a 1Gbps broadband home service. Although the idea of using shared infrastructure is nothing new for TV/phone/data this appears to be the first to do this over IP at such high speed. The cost is high - 215 USD a month. Per megabit, however, this is a very cheap service. This kind of solution only really works in town blocks where cat5 cabling is a realistic option."
The only things certain in war are Propaganda and Death. You can never be sure which is which though
They are also offering BB100, a 100Mbps service, that is similar to the price of regular ADSL in Hong Kong.
More information here: http://bb100.hkbn.net/BB100/index_e.htm
I am assuming that Hong Kong is subject to the same 'Net censorship that the rest of mainland China is? Or is this true?
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
While per megabyte/second it seems very cheap, you have to consider what your internet usage actually is. If you're only using the internet for an hour or two a day (and who among us doesn't?), then this faster speed internet is a lot more expensive than normal slower service. You're paying more, but not using more. That's not a better value, that's getting ripped off.
Even if you had this faster pipe, what would you do with it? Download more porn? Upload more MP3s?
I see the benefit for a fatter pipe for businesses who need to serve up large amounts of data, but for the average user, faster does very little. It's nothing like the jump from dialup to broadband. We are as fast as we need to be. Page downloads are already instantaneous, how can you seriously improve over instantaneous.
Well it will be as soon as someone installs a WiFi AP without changing the default settings. ;-)
A lot of Hong Kongers, especially the adolescents, are file-sharers, and are quite fed up with other ISPs in the region, especially the two leading ISPs, Netvigator and HK Cable.
Also, for tech-related services, adolescents in the households tend to be the decision-makers.
1 gbps is more bandwidth than an OC-48, which run for about 700,000 US dollars/month. I understand that consumers will only use a tiny fraction of their allocated bandwidth, and they don't demand the level of stability that an enterprise line needs. Still, you've got to figure that the ISP need to dedicate at least 50mbps of bandwidth to each customer (approx a DS3), and that would still be about $15,000 a month.
In sweden www.bredband2.se offers 1 Gbit connections for 118,60 USD. This is without limits.
For more information and so forth (in swedish) see www.labs2.se
If China wants to add Taiwan to its territory, why not entice them with offers of free or cheap broadband? This is sure to win more hearts than the current line which is "We'll bomb you to bits and kill you all if you acknowledge the obvious fact that you've been an independent country for 50 years."
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
Is that the opposite of a Communist Sandbox? Remember the old joke: "What do you get if you bring communism to the Sahara Desert? Well, at first, nothing. Then, after 10 years, you get a shortage of sand."
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
DVD-quality digital broadcasts, and VOIP-like service (?)
sounds interesting to me.
The whole reason we're "Behind" is because we have to update old technology, whereas most of the Aisan countries weren't as technologically advanced as we were until recently. Then they could go on making new technology, whereas we have to spend money to replace older stuff.
the Political Inquirer
I don't "get it". How does "not having anything in the first place" make it cheaper and easier? I'd guess that there would be no difference either way, and it might be a little easier to upgrade in the US if you have cable conduits all over the cities and wiring in the house for it.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
Now just everyone pause and think. What would people do with these 1gbit streams if there was no (illegal) downloadable content?
Sure legal content (without DRM) is also an option but since one is not available right now, we have to rely on piracy to increase the demand for bandwidth.
I'd guess that there would be no difference either way, and it might be a little easier to upgrade in the US if you have cable conduits all over the cities and wiring in the house for it.
Thats one of the problems in America. Stupid politicians and stupider companies. Until recently we have no "cable conduits" in most of the cities here. Ever noticed how often roads get ripped up to lay cable underneath them? Thats because until the people started complaining enough, it wasn't enough of an issue to justify the expense of doing any additional work. Besides, someone has to keep the road construction crews employed.
Even now most places don't lay conduit due to liability and management concerns: "Hey, someone cut my cable! And what the hell is this bundle of cable doing filling up the whole conduit? What a hog!"
Ofcourse ,You need to stop complaining now as the people of Peru are far worse off than you and they shouldnt complain as the people of Papua new guinea are worse off than them and.... so the beat goes on
The only things certain in war are Propaganda and Death. You can never be sure which is which though
With peer-to-peer, the more popular a download is, the faster it can be downloaded. The limit is the speed of the internet connections of those trading file pieces. There is no central bottleneck. With a few high speed connections uploading, everyone's downloads will be faster.
I'll probably be modded down for this...
This kind of solution only really works in town blocks where cat5 cabling is a realistic option.
While technically it's often possible to do gigabit ethernet with CAT5, the article actually mentions that the cable drops are CAT5e.
Oh come on... This is /., we all know that stack of Playboys under your bed is just an offline backup in case your internet connection fails.
home
I don't "get it". How does "not having anything in the first place" make it cheaper and easier?
One word: Politics.
Government, Corporate, Local... It's all the same in that aspect -- it slows everything the hell down.
I think the idea is that it makes it a lot faster within the network, while Internet speeds are still limited. Many asian countries have all the services within the network that they need so for the most part they can get really high speeds, above the backbone speed.
The only reason the Internet looks so different from television today is because it lacks bandwidth.
The reason you don't "get it" is because you don't realize the impact of captalist economies coupled with lack of geographical world knowledge. Market economies work as getting a better product to the people at lower prices. Or in the case of British Virgin Mobile not raping me by locking me into a contract. If people don't realize what's being offered to them, and let's face it, AOL advertising will be the pushing force for wider broadband access although this is changing; people are actually starting to get a clue ...
To get to my point, since telco lines are leased by large corps whose goal is to profit .. they can do so with cooperation of other circumstance. Namely computers have already been bought, what is it? 80% of American homes spent a couple thousand for computer, monitor, keyboard, mouse, sound system, printer, scanner, digital camera, fax ... and we keep adding to the arsenal. Of course we also made way for really cheap computers by buying them very expensively; I saw an add recently for a computer for $300 including flat panel 15in ... wow ... not to mention MIT developing a $100 laptop ... double wow. I'm 21 and when I think of it, this stuff has me taken aback. I can't imagine how older people feel.
But once again I digress ... companies can continue to rape people here because we don't know AND we don't need more, at least we're given that impression. Do you really think other countries have the same sort of threat of getting sued by the **IA? I know they have threatened, but check out Pirate Bay's legal threats section. That's some crazy stuff that I can't have the luxury of experiencing; I can still have the **IA subpoena my ISP for accessing the site, and then potentially tracking data transfer between that link and me ... I mean they are my ISP afterall (comcast; who also had the nerve to try to buy Disney).
It's not as easy to just say "hey, let's just change this tire" when the threads are obviously still good. That's the perception we have, and the corps can make more money by not spending. I know this is only one person, but I have a 3 Mb down and 386 Kb up for $45/month. I run a web server and email server. It gets pumped through a openBSD 486dx firewall. I have wireless and what not. I occasionally download from P2P networks but more often from newsgroups. I use the internet extensively. I'm connected by a 1900+ AMD XP, 1 GB of ram on linux. I have no plans for upgrading my computer for at least a couple more years either. For the moment this speed is all I need. Would it not be cheaper and easier to upgrade. I guess I could get a 2800+ AMD and another gig of RAM, but would I really see a difference? Probably not. I don't think the majority of the rest of America would either.
Then again I see how you have a point. I had 512 MiB of RAM before I upgraded a few months back and 3 years ago I had a 15 flat panel which I gave to my grandmother and got me a 17 in flat panel. But it's not really cheaper because I could never recoup what I already had spent in that case. The ram was a good deal, but that's about all you can "add to" and get more. Most everything else is replacement which is mostly what you would have to do with wires and what not with the telco lines. I don't know though, you could maybe put up a few more COs, but then you would forget my other point above, we're made to think we are doing f
The only parts of America that are behind are the areas with monopolistic corporations that have no motivation to offer a more powerful service. In East Wenatchee, WA, the Douglas County Public Utilities District has laid fiber to the demarc( yes, to each and single house) and is offering 100 mbps symmetrical fiber internet service for $39.95/month. http://www.localtelonline.com/dbf.htm The PUD can get away with trampling all over inferior competing providers without getting sued by Charter and Verizon because the city isn't large enough to fight over.
I pay $84/month for 128k here in Ecuador. I don't even want to hear this! /me rips out hair
There is no such thing as "unlimited" in Australian Technology.
You're with the wrong ISP. To plug the one I'm with:
ISP.net.au
I just upgraded to the 1.5/256 unlimited plan, and I use quite a lot of the bandwidth on.... err... research. Yeah, research. *cough*
Screw you all! I'm off to the pub
who says we'll even be using as much cable in 5-10 years with all the advances in wireless technologies.
Thanks for the insight. The Capitalist version of it probably ends with "...and then you find you can't do anything because someone has patented sand dunes."
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
so again ... what for??
So that the SO can watch her soppy movie on the bigscreen in the bedroom, while I watch the fuzeball in the computer-room while downloading Service Pack 2 and still get good enough pings to play HL2 at the same time?
(Note: the above is a simulation; none of those apply to me... I am single, hate football, don't do Windows, and don't play PC games... so if I messed something up, please substitute the nearest applicable idea.)
"Go to CNN [for a] spell-checked, fact-checked summary" -- CmdrTaco
I'm moving to Hong Kong to study:
1) Software, music, and game piracy
2) The human female anatomy
3) Human sexual intercourse
ROMANES EUNT DOMUS
Locking cell phones should be outlawed in the US, no question. It's a completely artificial barrier whose only purpose is to make switching to different providers more expensive for consumers without giving them any benefit at all.