Cable Wants to Cut the Cord

skatephat420 writes "Wired News has featured an article on how "the cable industry wants you to chuck your cable -- at least when you're outside the house. The addition of a fourth wireless component to the cable package is now affectionately known as the 'quadruple play.'" With this addition to the standard package of voice, video and data, how long is it going to take DSL to compete?"

Comments

I'd put my money elsewhere

[Monte]

Cable access wherever I go? I think this is actually the wrong direction for them to persue - my strategy would be to first add some sort of uber-addictive MMORPG (which ought to be trivial) along with some other video games (subscription based, of course), and then the hard part: pizza, caffeine and beer delivery on-demand.

Then I would have no reason to leave the house, ever. I don't need to take it with me 'cause I ain't leaving.

Re:I'd put my money elsewhere

[lordkuri]

my strategy would be to first add some sort of uber-addictive MMORPG (which ought to be trivial) along with some other video games (subscription based, of course)

oh, you mean like SegaTV or The Sega Channel or whatever-the-hell-it-was-called? That flopped miserably, I might add...

Re:I'd put my money elsewhere

[slugo3]

Cable access wherever I go?

I see it as more of a push towards consolidating information services. Its all just information. The new episode of american idol, the text on the web telling you how to cook a good chicken gumbo, the email from your mom telling you to remember to wear clean undies, the call on your cellphone from the GF asking where you are. Sooner or later there is going to be a huge pipe streaming TV, movies, internet, radio etc.. into everyones house.

Re:I'd put my money elsewhere

[MighMoS]

I had the Sega Channel and that was awesome. its demise may have been closly tied to Sega's. Nintendo always did have the leg up on popularity.

Re:I'd put my money elsewhere

[MightyMartian]

I see it as a big-draw item that won't work as advertised, will ultimately make your viewing and Internet experience even worse, but because you allowed yourself to be sold on some sort of one-month-free-if-you-sell-your-soul-to-us deal, you won't be able to switch out of it.

In short, business as usual in the corporate world. "12 billion consumers screwed. Would you like a Happy Meal with that, sucker?"

Re:I'd put my money elsewhere

[Anonymous Coward]

pizza, caffeine and beer delivery on-demand.

you sir, are my new god.

Re:I'd put my money elsewhere

[doubledoh]

This kind of reminds me of pinkdot.com. In the SoCal area about 5-6 years back, during the dotcom boom, we used to be able to order booze, smokes, sandwiches, chips, munchies, etc online from pinkdot and it would be delivered to our house within a half hour. It rocked. I was really bummed when it went out of business...and I couldn't figure out why because our house (5 roomates+ dozens of walk-in friends) dropped about 200 bucks there every night. No one had to drink and drive, no one had to skip out any games on the LAN, and we didn't have to worry about the 2am booze cutoff either (because we became buddies with the delivery guys). I miss home delivery. Oh well.

Re:I'd put my money elsewhere

[tonsofpcs]

It works for hotels with their similarly structured Super-NES games to your hotel room system [albeit an hourly rate more often than not].

Re:I'd put my money elsewhere

[Mike Savior]

>I was really bummed when it went out of business...

When it went out of business?The site seems to still be up!

Battle of the Elephants: Wireless vs. Telcos.

[Ohmster]

The "quadruple play" is already a well understood investment play on Wall Street over the last few months. The big battle ahead is cable and what used to be the regional telcos. They're both arming themselves with everything they can think of, including faster and faster, two-way broadband, internet telephony, cellular and broadband wireless services, along with hundreds of content channels...and each side is committing to spend billions to do it. What investors are trying to understand is who remains standing with a semblance of a profitable business at the end of it. Each side is desperately trying not to end up being a "dumb pipe", but have a valuable "walled garden" of services to keep customers paying $50, 100 or more per month per household. Someone is going to end up losing these multi-billion dollar bets. More here: http://mp.blogs.com/mp/2005/07/on_wilting_wire.htm l

Mobile video? yeah right...

[lordkuri]

letting them access video content on their mobile device as seamlessly as they access "video on demand" programming at home.

So how long will they wait for the cellular & PCS companies to get somewhere near up to speed to be capable of live video? And no, Sprint's bullshit 15fps mobile "tv" doesn't count.

How DSL can compete?

[espergreen]

The DSL in my area costs 15$ a month, cable costs more than twice as much. Needless to say, I have DSL. Not everyone wants or needs cable tv.

Re:How DSL can compete?

[samdu]

Agreed. DSL is cheaper and faster here, too. And I haven't had cable in years (going on a decade). I got DirecTV and never looked back. I've had digital TV from day one all those years ago. Some of my friends recently "upgraded" from standard cable to "digital" cable and I'd take DirecTV any day of the week over the crappy picture they get. The only thing I DO wish is that I could get naked DSL here. It stinks to have to pay for a phone that I don't really need. That's coming, I assume, though.

Re:How DSL can compete?

[Frank T. Lofaro Jr.]

Everyone needs a landline phone.

You don't want to have to rely on your cell phone to dial 911.

Re:How DSL can compete?

[FuriousBalancing]

Everyone? Nobody I know under the age of 25 still has a landline.

Re:How DSL can compete?

[timeOday]

Everyone needs a landline phone.

I think not.

VOIP is reliable enough for me. Are you really that frightened not being able to dial 911? I don't have a cellphone, so I lose 911 service every time I walk out my front door. So what? It's like saying people shouldn't buy a home over a half mile from the fire department, just in case those extra few seconds end up making the difference between life and death. Humbug! A thousand other mishaps will kill you before a VOIP outage does.

Re:How DSL can compete?

[Anonymous Coward]

Too bad VOIP does not work when there is no power...

Re:How DSL can compete?

[argent]

VOIP is reliable enough for me.

That's what Time Warner Roadrunner was trying to tell me when I was on hold for the THIRD TIME THIS WEEK because my cable had gone down from 2PM to 5PM.

"Hello," I said to the customer service representative, after I finally got through their new and exciting phone system that told me two times how to spend 15 minutes resetting the DVR I don't own, "Could you tell your management that having ads for your phone service when people are on hold trying to get their cable service back... on a phone they couldn't use because their cable service was out... is probably NOT going to win many new customers?"

I was in Houston when Alicia hit. A tornado took out the U-Haul storage place across the street. I had no power for 6 hours. But my phone worked, I could even get online (on a BBS, the Internet wasn't around yet) and leave a message for the folks I knew back at college. When the floods hit we lost power for half a day, of course there was no cable. But my phone worked, I could let my family know I was OK. This June a storm (and possibly another tornado) dropped someone else's fence on my roof and took mine in exchange. I had no power and no cable for several hours. But I could call up the power company and report the outage, and the insurance company to make a claim! I'm getting a partial rebate for July, because a bad splitter had packet-loss going to 85% every time the weather got hot, but I could still call the cable company to report it even if it took them two weeks to get someone out at a time I could be home.

Hell with dialling 911. I want a landline phone because I need Time Warner's repair service on speed-dial.

Re:How DSL can compete?

[Anonymous Coward]

As far as 911 goes, buy a gun and learn how to use it. It's much faster and more reliable than dialing 911. I suggest a semi-automatic AK-47 clone from Romania with soft-point bullets. ;)

Re:How DSL can compete?

[robertjw]

No doubt. I can count on one hand how many times I've called 911 in the last 30 years. Most of those situations haven't been life threatening emergencies where arrival was critical. Most recently called 911 because some old man was wandering into traffic on a busy street - more preemptive than emergency. People are all crazy about this alleged 911 problem, but I bet the odds are better of getting struck by lightning than being in a situation where you have to call 911 and your cell phone either doesn't work or you aren't coherent enough to tell the dispatcher where you are. I know there have been incidents where crime victims have called 911 from a cell and the emergency personnel have not been able to reach them, but they are few and far between.

That said, I don't see how DSL is economical at all. Landline service is relatively expensive. We are all going to have cell phones anyway, why pay for both. I got a cable modem and got rid of my land line. It's pretty much a wash - and DSL wouldn't have been cheaper if I combined the DSL charge with my landline charge.

Re:How DSL can compete?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow... if god was trying to smite me that bad I'd want a very reliable phone too. I personally just use a cell phone (and a 2 meter ht).

Re:How DSL can compete?

[Babbster]

That's great and everything, but it only takes ONE time. Cable service (at least everywhere I've lived) goes out on a regular basis. My grandmother, who loves TV, dropped cable entirely because it just wouldn't stay on. It had a particularly nasty habit of going out for several hours at night (while she was asleep, finding out in the morning that the show[s] she tried to record weren't there), a couple days a week. If she was relying on that cable service for her phone and woke up in the middle of the night with chest pains and limited mobility, she would be SOL when she reached for the phone on her nightstand.

On the other hand, I can count the number of times our landline service has gone out over the last five years on ONE hand with a few fingers left over.

VOIP and cell phones may indeed work well enough for a lot of people but it's hard to beat a standard landline for reliability and, as mentioned elsewhere, the fact that phones can work when the power is out is a pretty big trump card. Like most people, we use mostly cordless phones, but there are a couple of phones lying around that requiring no external power just in case we need them.

Re:How DSL can compete?

[uberdave]

You mean my big fancy UPS won't power my cable modem? Funny, the plug fits into the outlet.

Re:How DSL can compete?

[Mordaximus]

"VOIP is reliable enough for me. Are you really that frightened not being able to dial 911?"

Having personally lived through the Ice Storm in 1998 and more recently the massive blackout, i was thankful for a reliable means of communcation, even if it weren't to contact 911. It was also nice to have a reliable method of being reached.

Even just a normal power outage is not all that uncommon in winter. Following your suggestion, we'd cross our fingers and hope that in an emergency a)The ISP is up, b)The VoIP provider is in a similar state and c) You actually have power to run your end of the VoIP equipment. Brilliant plan.

Maybe you don't need a landline, but you'll be thankful your neighbour has one when it counts.

Re:How DSL can compete?

[rcamera]

nobody you know under the age of 25 owns a house apparently...

Re:How DSL can compete?

[uberdave]

What am I going to do? Blow my friend away when she slips on some water on the deck, knocks over the BBQ, hits her head, and lies unconscious on the back yard? Am I supposed to shoot the fire caused by the BBQ charcoal spread out over the deck?

Re:How DSL can compete?

[Anonymous Coward]

you don't need to pay for a landline phone to use 911. ever notice the people that pay for phone service have to pay a universal 911 fee? that money goes to cover 911 service for everyone, including the people that don't pay for service. so just keep a phone plugged in for emergencies. why pay $30 or whatever for this when its free?

Re:How DSL can compete?

[kc01]

My sentiments exactly. While others have had a good experience with Comcast, my experiences have not been good.

• They accidentally unplug my cable, then take 72 hours to reconnect it.
• I pay for 5 IP addresses (all DHCP, no less), and they can't get more than two working.
• Nobody there seems to know all the procedures for getting something done. I frequently hear that I "should have called a different department" in order to get something done.
• Fairly regularly, my service inexplicably drops for minutes to hours at a time.
• It's impossible to get to any employee authorized to make a decision. All I can reach are incompetent first-level support people and first-level "managers" (who are probably just other support flunkies).
• They consistently fall down on promises of "we'll have you working in 24-72 hours."
• Their phone menu takes forever to navigate in order to get to a human.
• No call to their service department is ever quick- I've rarely been on hold less than 10 minutes, and commonly over a half hour.
• Their customer service is without a doubt the WORST I have ever seen for ANY kind of service provider.
• And a personal gripe: The condescending "Thank you for calling Comcast" really irks me. If the friggin' service worked, I wouldn't HAVE to keep calling those bozos!

There's NO WAY I'll rely on them for telephony. I truly wish they weren't a broadband monopoly. I can't get DSL with any reasonable speed where I live, so Comcast is the only game in town.

Re:How DSL can compete?

[argent]

I have to add that my ISDN service from SWB has been even less reliable. It's a dedicated point-to-point dial-on-demand between home and work, about as simple a scheme as possible, and I've still had problems. Oh, and when I call them about the problems, I have to spend ten minutes convincing them not to switch me over to their Internet people as soon as I say ISDN.

It's not that they're cable versus telco, it's that there's a century of telco culture behind "voice phone service is important, damnit", and phone guys willing to go the extra mile to make it work... but data and wireless? Nobody considers them critical, the way they do POTS.

I wouldn't switch to VOIP whether the IP bit was provided by the phone company, the cable company, the cellular company, or little green men from Mars. Not until they start taking IP as seriously as they do dialtone, anyway.

Re:How DSL can compete?

[robertjw]

As the old addage goes, there's an exception to every rule and you have one. Cable internet service in my area happens to be very reliable. I have only had one outage in the past year. Also, cell phones run on batteries, if they are charged using them during a power outage isn't a problem.

Landlines are very reliable and it's reasonable for anyone that has potential health problems that may require assistance to have the most reliable means of communication possible. It may only take ONE time, but as also mentioned elswhere in this thread, life is a series of trade-offs. We don't live in a perfectly safe world, for me it's not worth $40/month for the extra comfort of a landline when I have a cell phone that is very reliable. For your grandmother this may not be a viable option, although I imagine statistically having an emergency where a cell or VOIP phone fails is much less than many other life threatening circumstances.

Re:How DSL can compete?

[westlake]

Are you really that frightened not being able to dial 911?

You bet I am. My brother collapsed from a wasp sting this summer. No pulse. No breath when he reached the hospital. The next sting will hit harder and faster. It will never be safe for him to be caught without a hypo kit and a telephone. As an asthmatic, I have lived under similiar constraints since I was ten years old.

Re:How DSL can compete?

[lakeland]

Absolutely. Shooting problems always makes them go away, just ask ...

Re:How DSL can compete?

[ryanov]

I have one. I don't understand people that don't. I'm 23.

Re:How DSL can compete?

[ryanov]

A guy was coming at me the wrong way on a highway ramp the other day (and I'm talking about a ramp structure that goes on for miles and ends at Newark Airport) -- my dad dialed 911 from his cell. Rang forever. Granted, in a car, couldn't have dialed 911 without a cell anyway, but I just thought it was an interesting example.

Re:How DSL can compete?

[ryanov]

I don't think that's true. When your line is dead (ie. pick up the phone, phone gets no power), you ain't dialing anything.

Re:How DSL can compete?

[Phishcast]

People are very good at pointing out times when 911 would or could be important. Sure there will be those rare times. But I don't live where hurricanes are a problem. I'm not 90 years old. I've got a cell phone. My high speed internet service has been reliable for 4 years. Throw as many oddball scenarios out there as you like, VOIP is a good fit for a lot of us out here.

Re:How DSL can compete?

[pitdingo]

so to use VOIP, i need to buy a UPS too? What happens when the UPS runs out of power?

Re:How DSL can compete?

[The Warlock]

Neither does my cordless landline phone, which is the only one in the house. If you lose power and your house burns down at the same time, you're pretty fucked no matter how you slice it.

Re:How DSL can compete?

[Anonymous Coward]

Clearly you don't have kids. I'll keep my landline and my nice 911 connection till my kids are off at college.

Re:How DSL can compete?

[jallison]

Neither does my cordless landline phone, which is the only one in the house.

I ran a line out to the garage and stuck an ancient "princess phone" that was in the house when we bought it out there. Now there's one landline phone in the house that works with no power. Foolproof? Hardly. But cheap insurance.

If you lose power and your house burns down at the same time, you're pretty fucked no matter how you slice it.

Hard to argue with that. Sometimes you're just plain screwed. Funny how some people argue against partial solutions because they can come up with a case that the partial solution doesn't cover. Doesn't mean that the partial solution isn't worth doing, though.

Re:How DSL can compete?

[LilGuy]

My stepdad recently cut off our dsl thru SBC due to a bloody family battle that left him out of the house. I've worked for Houston's Time Warner Cable call center so I know just how unreliable their cable system is. Any given day I'd receive at least 5 calls from customers complaining that their service had been down more than it was up and have had numerous technicians out to "fix" it. So we called SBC back up to get our dsl back, being as how I'd NEVER had an issue with my dsl going down.

The digital phone with TWC is a nightmare and a half. It's taking a technology that ALREADY worked fine and adding all sorts of complications to it. The sad thing is, the only part of it that IS digital is the part that runs from the cable modem to the CO. The rest travels over the same phone network as a regular phoneline.

As for DSL competing with cable's new DOCSIS standards that will eventually allow for 100 mbps connections, I asked an SBC technician what they were planning to do. He told me we don't have to worry about that. They just got the okay from all the beauracrats to roll out fiber to the home. It will hopefully be completed everywhere in Houston within the next couple years. They've already got a couple areas rolled out and are testing.

All this time I wondered what that massive attack campaign that Time Warner had pursued was REALLY all about. Now I know. They were trying to stop SBC from being able to run fiber to the home, and in a sense knocking them out of the internet competition. Bastards.

Re:How DSL can compete?

[argent]

I've worked for Houston's Time Warner Cable call center...

If I've ever said anything to you that I might have cause to regret, I apologise. I know it's not your fault, but some days, well, I'm not a saint.

Re:How DSL can compete?

[KUHurdler]

"All this time I wondered what that massive attack campaign that Time Warner had pursued was REALLY all about. Now I know. They were trying to stop SBC from being able to run fiber to the home, and in a sense knocking them out of the internet competition. Bastards."

All the while SBC is trying to stop VOIP from happening, and dragging their feet as much as they can with number portability. SBC is not your friend either. Both sides are positioning themselve to make the most money possible. its capitalism.

how long is it going to take DSL to compete?

[rob_squared]

I think that's FiOS's job.

Wow!

[Anonymous Coward]

Wireless television! Who would've thunk it?

Oh, wait.

SBC already bundles this

[SydShamino]

SBC already offers a bundles package of:
Home phone service
Long distance
DSL internet service
Dish Network satellite TV
Cingular Wireless phone service

It seems that the cable companies are trying to catch up to DSL, not the other way around.

If cable can integrate their content onto the phones as the article suggests, maybe they will pull ahead.

Re:SBC already bundles this

[bigbadunix]

Sure they do, but what's the -real- value of their package versus cable? In my neck of the woods, Time Warner offers incredible deals for the "trifecta", offering deep discounts if you subscribe to all 3 layers of service. Granted, no wireless (yet), but with the discounts afforded to me, I'm still able to choose the wireless provider of my choice and financially, be in a good place.

Because, let's face it. SBC DSL sucks, who wants Dish Network, and Cingular, at least in my area, blows equally. Yes, I know TW has issues (price for some of you, customer service for others), but I'm generally happy with the level of service that they are offering.

Telcos can't even come near to the speeds that cable can offer, still gouge for long distance, and realistically, their customer service is pretty shoddy, at best.

1 bill for all my "trifecta" needs, no land line, and the wireless provider of my choice? Sounds like a pretty good deal to me.

Now I'm just waiting for TW to allow me to 'beam' content from 1 DVR to the other (because, really, 2 tuners per box is no way near adequate). The day I can do that with my cellphone? can't wait.

But, that's just my opinon, and I'm dumb.

Dammit

[Anonymous Coward]

You know, frankly, I don't want to give a single cent to the cable company. I don't have any interest in television service. I don't have any interest in talking to the idiotic telephone monopoly that controls DSL service in this town. But, if I want broadband internet, I HAVE to go with either the telephone monopoly, or the cable monopoly-- even though

About the only service I'm satisfied with is my cell phone service. I continue happily using my cell phone, and juggle switching between cable internet (but no cable tv) and dsl (but no phone service).

Now I find out that our cable monopoly may start trying to elbow in on cell phones too.

Great!

I'm sick of being beholden to the nonresponsive feudal lords who own the wires going into my home, while slashdotters repeatedly tell me how these same feudal lords are defenders of freedom from the big bad evil government who wants to own the internet. I very badly miss ten years ago, when the ISP market contained C O M P E T I T I O N and if my ISP wasn't treating me right, I could switch to another if I wanted.

I want to say fuck all of these people, especially the cable companies who now want to sell me incompetent wireless in addition to their extant incompetent cable service. I want to switch to a fully wireless ISP and get my internet by 802.16 or some shit. When can I do that?

Re:Dammit

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Hopefully, if you're lucky, from Verizon or T-Mobile. All you need is a bluetooth phone and a USB bluetooth module- and once 3G networks roll into your neighborhood cell towers, you can unplug completely.

Re:Dammit

[argent]

once 3G networks roll into your neighborhood cell towers, you can unplug completely.

And with the cellular airtime charges, you'll end up paying as much as if you'd bought Cable and DSL as backups to each other.

Bypassing the Incumbents

[SolarCanine]

It's obvious that all these large companies with massive infrastructure want to extend the use of said infrastructure as much as possible.

But what I'm really waiting to see is whether or not any new/fringe players will make a move to implement a WiMAX grid that has decent redundancy and large-scale coverage and move away from the "ground-based" bandwidth carriers.

IMHO, that's where the really interesting dynamics come into play. FTTH, increased cable speed/features, expanded DSL offerings, that's all great. But show me a completely tetherless solution for my voice/data/entertainment needs with mass coverage and you've got me hooked for your hundreds a month, with probably less cost to you than to (insert cable co./telco here).

Re:Bypassing the Incumbents

[JPriest]

But even WiMAX is really only a last mile solution for FTTN.

Re:Bypassing the Incumbents

[GMFTatsujin]

I don't see why your plan isn't working already! It's got all the buzzwords, after all...

Re:Bypassing the Incumbents

[Osmosis_Garett]

With fiberoptics coming down the pipe, who wants to abandon land based communications?

It won't work.

[ArielMT]

Big problem: The only place this will work is deep within cities and neighborhoods already deeply penetrated by free-access wireless hotspots. And it'll be more expensive and less reliable than wired cable Internet.

That is, unless they're talking about wireless cable modems. If that's so, then DSL has already beat cable to the punch: ActionTec has half-decent DSL modems that double as a wired router and wireless access point.

Wired Magazine is notoriously vague on the details when hyping new tech possibilities like this, so please forgive my own vagueness as well.

Re:It won't work.

[poopdeville]

ActionTec has half-decent DSL modems that double as a wired router and wireless access point.

Yup. They run Linux. If you telnet in, both the login and password are "admin." You can telnet in from both the LAN and WAN sides. Indeed, you can connect to the web administration page from the WAN side. And the CGI script is broken enough to let you open arbitrary files. If it weren't for an utterly complete lack of functionality, I'd be very worried.

Re:It won't work.

[smcallah]

There are already cable modems with built in wireless routers/access points.

Re:It won't work.

[generic-man]

Had you read the article (Wired isn't slashdotted) you would have known that the "wireless" capability being discussed is mobile phones, not 802.11[abgi]. You know, the kind of wireless that works more than 200 feet from your home.

Re:It won't work.

[ArielMT]

Wired isn't slashdotted; indeed that's true. But Wired is the hardest to read quasi-news site passed off as a mainstream news site. Not even /. itself is as bad as Wired is with hype.

I read every word of the article before posting, yet I managed to miss what the hype was.

Now that means one of two things: either there's something wrong with me, which doesn't explain why it's only Wired I have problems with, or there's something wrong with Wired, which fully explains why it's only with Wired I have an issue.

Thank you for applying your ability to find the tiny gem in that pile of rubbish that is Wired's "journalism" and letting me know. I genuinely appreciate that.

I already have this

[Marxist Hacker 42]

On an old Windows box, I have BeyondTV and a TV Tuner card, but you could do this just as easily with MythTV or just about anything else given the right codecs. Copy the files to a flash card for use in my PDA- and I've got TV on the bus, usually shows that I can't stay awake for due to my work hours.

Re:I already have this

[nogginthenog]

I occasionally do this, but:
a) I don't want to look like a serious geek on the train
b) I don't want someone to steal my iPAQ [1]

tip: encode into xvid at a low bit rate - you'll never notice the difference on a PDA screen.

[1] But considering the large number of Police currently patrolling the transport systems in the London area (7 at my local 2-platform station yesterday morning!) the chances are small.

Convergence

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

From TFA:

"They want this phone to do everything that their TV does and everything that their PC does."

So I guess my phone will now gets viruses, worms, spyware, while it's busy playing mindless advertising interrupting my conversation every 5 minutes?

Re:Convergence

[Anonymous Coward]

Sprint PCS, brought to you in a joint effort by Claria, Weatherbug, and CoolWebSearch.

Re:Convergence

[ArielMT]

Or worse... Hey, is that a signpost ahead, standing between day and night?

* RING *
Me: "Hello?"
Caller: "I love you, Melissa... VRAUGH!"
Phone: "Aieeee!"
Me: "What the-"
Phone: "Settings successfully changed. Thank you for choosing 1-900-SEX-LINE as your preferred local and long distance mobile carrier."
* ME SHUTTING PHONE OFF *
* PHONE TURNS BACK ON *
Phone: "Your phone bill has been charged a $395 convenience fee for use of your new service. Thank you."
* ME SCRAMBLING TO RIP OFF BATTERY COVER
Phone: "Auto-answer enabled."
* TEXT BEEP *
Phone: "Thank you for your use of 1-900-SEX-LINE to send 18,000 email and text messages. The total charge is $42,648.33 in addition to roaming charges from your roaming service provider."
* RIPS COVER OFF *
* RING *
Caller (auto-answer): "Hello. Your phone service has been suspended for unacceptable use, pending payment of $956.48 for sending 18,000 email and text messages."
* FINALLY RIPS BATTERY OUT *

Re:Convergence

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm more concerned with having to "reboot" my phone every few calls. Not to mention the service packs. Add to that having to listen to a commercial before every call and I think it'll be time to go back to tin cans and string. More reliable not to mention more secure.

Re:Convergence

[Anonymous Coward]

Amen!! Thank you for saying it!

Oh stop.

[jmorris42]

In the areas where cable is available, DSL also tends to be available. And competitive. BellSouth is the government sponsored DSL monopoly competitor to Cox, the government sponsored Cable monopoly here. Cox currently offers a slightly faster connection in theory but no static IP. And of course I actually talked to a Cox rep. Sure they offer a 6mb down (unknown up) plan, but they only have 24mb serving the whole fscking city. Sign my ass up now! Of course I'd be the only iso scarfing file leech in town. I only have 3mb with BellSouth, but I actually get 3mb downloads on a routine basis. And for me, static IP is not something I'd be willing to trade off. I connect back to home from work as often as I connect to work from home. Sure you can kludge things to work with random IP, but it is so much better to just assign a name in a bind config file and forget it.

Re:Oh stop.

[kc32]

My Cox IP addres is more or less static. It's Dynamic, but it hasn't changed in months.

Re:Oh stop.

[minus_273]

no static ip? that is what dyndns.org is for..

Re:Oh stop.

[Anonymous Coward]

6 meg DSL will be here in a few months. This time next year, 24 meg made up of 2 bonded 12 meg pairs.

Re:Oh stop.

[dresgarcia]

I will never go back to cable now. I just signed up for verizon FIOS. 15mb down/2mb up. 15mb down/2mb up. 15mb down/2mb up. . .soorry that phrase just excites me so much since I'll be shedding my $120 a month cable bill for $20 a month and paying the same amount for internet, $50. And now I will have 3 times the speed. (my cable i sonly at 5mb right now) This service should be available everywhere

Cable TV

[Nightspirit]

The only reason I even have cable is because COX bundles it free with my internet cable subscription.

I can't even remember the last time I watched TV. I mainly use it for DVDs and games.

If cable TV ever dies I won't shed a single tear. Let me know when they get rid of the commercials.

Re:Cable TV

[stunted]

They already have

If you want an easy life, go get reference hardware for KnoppMyth

Re:Cable TV

[bigbadunix]

Cable still has commercials? Funny, ever since the shiny new DVR arrived on my doorstep, commercials mysteriously disappeared from my life.

I used to hate TV for the same reason. Now, the TV (and cable) is my bitch.

Re:Cable TV

[Nightspirit]

Wow, thanks! I'm going to try this out.

Re:Cable TV

[stunted]

ATM I'm in an NTSC region (Philippines) for 6 months so I only have one channel (Hauppauge WinTV 401) but when I return to Hong Kong, I'll get one or two PAL PVR 500s which will enable me to record up to 4 channels simultaneously, never again will I miss a good movie, documentary, MotoGP race because the Girlfriend wants to watch a Chick flick or friends.

BwaaHaaHaa WoaaaHaaHaa, and then I shall get some hamsters and strap freekin' lasers to their heads and take over the world.

Re:Cable TV

[Anonymous Coward]

"The only reason I even have cable is because COX bundles it free with my internet cable subscription."

yknow... my cable provider offered me the same deal. I didn't take it, its still not cheap enough.

I told them to call me back when theyre ready to PAY me to watch that crap. Even then I'm not sure it would be a good deal.

Has to be a dupe

[gcnaddict]

Either its a deja-vu, or its a dupe. I cant find the link, but Im 100% positive this was slashdotted once already, and a long time ago too.

Tech

[confundido]

so, what technology is going to be available to cable companies that telco companies won't have? yes, cable companies will have content, but telco companies are already teaming up with dish network and the like....

You should expand your acronyms

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is Salt Lake City funding the Chartered Institute of Patent Agents? They're in england!

Re:You should expand your acronyms

[jmorris42]

> Why is Salt Lake City funding the Chartered Institute of Patent Agents?
> They're in england!

Well a sig does have a fairly short limit, and I'm old school and wouldn't ever go over 72 chars anyway.

SLC is the Schools and Librarys Corp, a psuedo government corporation that suckles at the the teat created by the line item on your phone bill called "Universal Service Fund". It dispenses money to schools and libraries to subsidize their Internet connection.... with more strings than Pinocchio. One of the nastier ones being CIPA.

CIPA is the Child Internet Protection Act. It, like most big government programs tend to, 'protects' the children by the simple expedient of infantalizing everyone. Filtering children's Internet access is a no brainer, something we were doing years before the feds rediscovered the Internet. But we did it in a sensible way, considering the limitations of the tech. We had a filter. Then we didn't allow minors to access the Internet at ALL without a parental consent form, because the net is a dangerous place even with a filter. The parent could set their preferred level of access for each child, well by library card actually. They could pick from:

1. No access at all

2. Access only when accompanied by them.

3. Filtered

4. Unfiltered.

Here in rural Louisiana, buckle of the bible belt, a fair number of parents picked unfiltered for older teens. Then Great White Father in Washington overrulled them, declaring nobody would receive unfiltered access by default and only those over 18 could even put in a per session request for unfiltered. Period, end of discussion.

DSL is still ahead in my book.

[DaedalusHKX]

I can run a server on 29.99/mo DSL...

39.99+all sorts of fees = 54.00 / mo cable does NOT allow me to run ANY servers, and block most of the default service ports for unix... (most still allow windows, but I'm not about to buy IIS to run a simple site on that huge clunking POS).

Of course if I manage to get around it by shifting ports around, they threaten to cut off my service if I do not disconnect the server within 5 days of being notified. (if it happens a second time, they DO cut off the service as they have done to me before)

In my book, DSL is still light years ahead of cable for what ***I*** need!

For browsing its a tad slow, but they don't have nearly as many DNS outages as the providers in my area.

Re:DSL is still ahead in my book.

[ScytheBlade1]

Here's the thing. Comcast (shut up about what the ToS says, really) allows you to do that.

When they started to crack down on spam, they didn't just kill off :25. They watched the traffic for huge amounts of e-mail, scanned the e-mails, and then cut off the spammers.

They could have shut off :25 in the blink of an eye, but instead they invested actual money into fixing the problem without pissing off their competent user base. I would know, I'm part of that user base. Additionally, I have some friends working Comcast tech support, and they can likewise vouch for what I've said.

Re:DSL is still ahead in my book.

[Wonko]

39.99+all sorts of fees = 54.00 / mo cable does NOT allow me to run ANY servers, and block most of the default service ports for unix... (most still allow windows, but I'm not about to buy IIS to run a simple site on that huge clunking POS).

In most areas DSL is much slower than cable. My cable here is somewhere in the neighborhood of 3 megabit down and 128 up. When I had Comcast they bumped it up to something like 4/256 or some such.

Why on earth would you want to run any services over DSL or cable? The speed and reliabilty are absolutely awful. I have a little Debian virtual server that I pay somewhere short of 20 dollars a month for. I get 30 gigabytes of bandwidth per month and I have seen sustained uplink speeds of over 500 KB/second.

I certainly do not have the cheapest package with my provider, and there are certainly cheaper providers.

Re:DSL is still ahead in my book.

[WindBourne]

And when it goes down, what then?

Or if you wish to update, what then?
With the server at your house, YOU are in control. Not the virtual hosting.

As it is, the DSL and Cable industry are getting ready to do another bump up (to support VOIP). At that point, then you will have loads of speed to your system. As long as it is used for personal use, most will not care.

Re:DSL is still ahead in my book.

[sk8king]

My ISP just upped our DSL from 1.5Mbit down to 5Mbit down. It is still 512kbps upstream but that doesn't bother me. I can now enjoy downloading at over 500KBytes/sec when the upstream server supports it.

Oh yeah...and its $37.95/month....Canadian

Re:DSL is still ahead in my book.

[Wonko]

And when it goes down, what then?

My virtual host? I have had it for about a year now. I believe it has been down twice for maintenence. It currently has 114 days uptime. I also do not have to worry about backups, they do it for me. On the other hand my cable modem has been down/unresponsive for more short periods than I care to count. They do not, and will never guaranty 5 nines of uptime. My virtual host does. If I want that out of Cable/DSL I would need to pay more.

Or if you wish to update, what then? With the server at your house, YOU are in control. Not the virtual hosting.

My server came with Debian Woody, I updated it to Sarge. I have root, I can do most anything I want. If I need more memory, disk, or bandwidth I just buy more.

As it is, the DSL and Cable industry are getting ready to do another bump up (to support VOIP). At that point, then you will have loads of speed to your system. As long as it is used for personal use, most will not care.

First of all, I do not have that speed now. Second, I do not expect the same uptime out of a residential service.

I host domains for myself and a few friends. None of them, especially myself, would be happy to have an email outage :p.

Re:DSL is still ahead in my book.

[Anonymous Coward]

Pah. You Americans think you've got something special. Not so...

Here I am in BeiJing, China, and my 99rmb/month service gives a 10Mb/s (UTP) service, up *and* down. That's US$12.21/month. ... but, yes, as with you, *when the upstream server supports it*, which, thanks to the Wall(TM), is almost never ... ... unless, of course, your work uses the same ISP, which, in my case, they do :)

Still, I often get multi-megabit (2-3) speeds (up *and* down) to the US, which ain't so bad.

Re:DSL is still ahead in my book.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes where i am its a reverese, cable company dont care dsl you cant do jack

Re:DSL is still ahead in my book.

[Phreakiture]

39.99+all sorts of fees = 54.00 / mo cable does NOT allow me to run ANY servers, and block most of the default service ports for unix... (most still allow windows, but I'm not about to buy IIS to run a simple site on that huge clunking POS).

Of course if I manage to get around it by shifting ports around, they threaten to cut off my service if I do not disconnect the server within 5 days of being notified. (if it happens a second time, they DO cut off the service as they have done to me before)

This is completely opposite my experience.

My experience is that cable delivers the goods, and the local telco (which is a large, national telco that begins with a V) cannot extract their collective crania from their collective recta long enough to provision DSL for me. I waited --get this-- five months while they dicked around trying to set me up.

When finally I'd decided I had had enough, I called up the cable company, who promised me service in five days. The service was on in four.

As for fees surcharges, etc., the cable company prices their service at $44.95, and the bill I get says $44.95 in the amount due box every month. I do not purchase any service from them except internet (I get TV by satellite).

My phone bill, on the other hand, for wireline service, is priced at $15/mo for service and $15/mo for unlimited long distance. Do you think my phone bill is therefore $30? No, of course not! It's more typically $48.

Back to the cable co, while theoretically, they have the right to block me from running a server, they do not. I do know that they have raised hell with people for running mail servers (because of spam issues), but to the best of my knowledge, nobody has been shut down for running a web server. This is with Time-Warner, who I am naming because I have been very pleased with thier service.

Re:DSL is still ahead in my book.

[Bob Uhl]

Exactly. I want a dumb pipe. In fact, I don't even really need email or Usenet (although I really like having them provided, and consider them a plus). I certainly don't want 'free' web space (I'm paying for it anyway if it's included, and since I've already a significant investment in my own hardware...). I don't really care about any local 'value-added' services. What I want is:

• The ability to access my home box from anywhere in the world via SSH, HTTP, HTTPS or any other protocol I want
• A static IP address
• No firewalling

Give me that, and I'm happy. If you give me an email address, cool. If you give me Usenet access, sweet. But don't limit me to browsing. The internet is about connecting people and computers as peers.

Re:DSL is still ahead in my book.

[jameskojiro]

You wouldn't happen to be in Soviet Russia????

Re:DSL is still ahead in my book.

[ivan256]

I had to switch from DSL to cable when I moved, and i wish I could go back.

Comcast's IP blocks are in every RBL known to man, and the upstream speed sucks. With DSL you can pick an ISP that has non-blocked addresses and business grade SLAs. With cable I have to colocate a box to run my e-mail servers.

Self Delusion

[Scareduck]

Check this quote:

"The wireless phone is becoming the third screen of [consumers' lives]," said John Garcia, Sprint's senior VP of sales and distribution. "They want this phone to do everything that their TV does and everything that their PC does."

Does this guy even get out and talk to anybody who isn't a marketroid or a self-serving company flack (often the same people)? I have never -- not one time -- met a person who's demanding this. If anything, what I've encountered is people who don't want their phone to be anything other than a phone. This is self-interested wanking from a company praying for yet another captive customer base.

Re:Self Delusion

[Anonymous Coward]

Tell me about it. Unless this is a case of terrible misquoting, nothing that Peter Weedfald guy says makes any sense at all.

It's the return of the pocket protectors. You are no longer in control. The consumer has the power.

We think the quadruple play is right there. We can't do it alone. Selling cold steel does nothing for us.

I think I lost a couple of IQ points just reading that.

Re:Self Delusion

[sysadmn]

You're correct. I've never met anyone who wants their phone to do this for free, much less at the nickle a pop or $5/month/service the telcos think folks will spend.

Re:Self Delusion

[Monkelectric]

I've got that right now, its called the Treo650...

Re:Self Delusion

[lakeland]

Actually, I'm rather fond of my phone having a complete addressbook and using a different ringtone depending on who is ringing. That's available now.

Since I've had to manually enter that all into the computer in order to sync the cellphone anyway, I'd be pretty keen on the phone also syncing the information off the computer. That's the direction I'd like to see phones develop.

Re:Self Delusion

[RedWizzard]

That's still just a phone working like phone though. The integrated address book is an obvious extension to make it easier to use. These people are talking about stuff like on demand video on your phone.

Re:Self Delusion

[FleaPlus]

I have never -- not one time -- met a person who's demanding this.

I demand this. I've often used my Treo as a PC substitute while on the go, for checking email, reading slashdot, ssh-ing, storing files, chatting on IRC and IM, watching the occasional TV episode, and listening to OGG files. It's been quite a lifesaver on many an occassion.

Re:Self Delusion

[Anonymous Coward]

yeah uh huh... I prefer something you can fit in your pocket since I'm a guy and don't carry around a purse all the time

Re:Self Delusion

[Anonymous Coward]

I totally agree. For one thing, television blows. It could disappear forever and I wouldn't shed a tear. Nevermind my cell phone; I find it not only possible but altogether preferable to live without the incessant Friends reruns, idiotic "reality" shows and endlessly obnoxious commercials that sum up the cable TV experience... in my HOUSE.

Re:Self Delusion

[psililisp]

He's being a cunning VP of sales and distribution. Before long, all the people who you say aren't demanding what he's selling, will be demanding it -- just because he has been saying it's valuable and wanted.

The flock doesn't come up with their own ideas of what they want; they're fed them.

Re:Self Delusion

[gharris]

I recently got a Motorola E815 from Verizon and got a one-month free subscription to their VCast service which lets you watch streaming videos. Right now it is mainly news, sports, weather, stuff like that. But let me tell you, it is very addictive. If they could expand it to more 'live' type broadcasts of say sporting events or tv shows in general, I would be very interested. Would be quite nice to pull up the highlights of a baseball or football game from anywhere.
Oh and with the bluetooth dial-up networking profile you can get almost DSL speeds on the road (360kbps as rated by the CNET bandwidth site).

Correction : "providers" - "cable providers"

[DaedalusHKX]

For browsing its a tad slow, but they don't have nearly as many DNS outages as the providers in my area.

I meant to say that DSL is slower than cable for downloading purposes, and instead of "providers" substitute "cable providers in my area".

DSL Does Compete

[Dracos]

When the DSL provider says you're getting X bandwidth, that's what you and only you get. When the cable company says you get X bandwidth, you're actually sharing it with up to 253 neighbors.

Re:DSL Does Compete

[topham]

Great, so I get X bandwidth between me, and the local telco switch... at which point it's merged with 253 neighbors.

Me, I get better bandwidth on Bad days than anyone I know with residential DSL service in this city.

(500-800KBytes per second on downloads).

Re:DSL Does Compete

[smart_ass]

How many times have we heard htis, yet having used both cable and ADSL (in Vancouver, Canada) there is NO noticeable difference to the end user. If anything my service from teh Cable company has been marginally better.

Re:DSL Does Compete

[AngelofDeath-02]

Well, I do dsl tech support. And i'm here to inform you that your dsl has a percentage of your line that's being used to maintain that sync.

And most likely, your ISP doesn't give a damn if its 50% or even 80%.

What does that mean to you? Well, if you have 1.5MBps and a 66% relcap (to make things easy) you get .5MBps to use. Then you factor the overhead ...

Its very common to see 20-50% and that's a significant hit on your bandwidth ...

Re:DSL Does Compete

[div_2n]

Actually the backbones connecting COs to major backbones are usually vastly underutilized since voice calls leave such a small footprint comparitively speaking. What can happen is if your neighborhood is remote and connected by a fiber backhaul to the CO. In that case, you are sharing that backhaul with your neighbors and are at the mercy of how much bandwidth it can carry.

With cable, you are undoubtedly more at the mercy of sharing, but chances are your cable provider has plenty of bandwidth to spare as well.

Oh, and lets not forget that the technology to provide 100MB connections over cable is coming down the pipeline soon.

Re:DSL Does Compete

[Phroggy]

I have done DSL support in the past; this is true. Basically, as the quality of your phone line goes down, the speed you can reasonably expect to get also goes down. If your speed is capped at 1Mbps and you have a good phone line, maintaining sync won't take much bandwidth. If you have a crappy phone line, maintaining sync will take much more - unless your line is capped at a slower speed; then maintaining sync will use a reasonable percentage again.

I've seen a DSL line that was accidentally capped at 20Mbps; almost the entire connection was used to maintain sync and it could only get a few packets of data through. I was amazed that it worked at all; they must have had a great quality phone line - but of course from the customer's perspective, it was completely unusable. We had the LEC cap the line back down to where it was supposed to be, and it ran great.

As you say, the ISP doesn't give a damn if it's 50% or 80%... this is because there's absolutely nothing the ISP can do about it, because their contract with the LEC says that's acceptable, so if the ISP opens a trouble ticket with the LEC, the LEC will look at it, see that it's working adequately according to their contract with the ISP, and close the ticket. Of course if it's REALLY bad, the LEC can send a technician out to your house to replace your phone line, but that's very expensive (relative to how much you pay per month for the service), so they really don't want to do that unless they have to.

Knowing this, what do I use at home? DSL. To hell with the speed, I want reliability and the choice between dozens of competing ISPs. Screw cable modem providers and their dynamic IPs, firewalled ports, asinine AUPs, clueless techs, and general lack of interest in providing the services I want for a reasonable price. I pay slightly more than I would with cable, but my DSL service is extremely reliable, my ISP set up custom reverse DNS for me on my static IP address (after checking to make sure I had sendmail properly configured to use that hostname, which I did), they don't run away screaming "we don't support that!" when I mention I run Linux or Mac OS X, and basically they stay out of my hair.

I remember...

[game kid]

...seeing an ad on a truck about two months ago saying that Verizon Fios "is here." Obviously, I checked their web site to see that it was not available in the Bronx yet.

I know a lot of game players in the land of Poe and Yankees who would love to have something of that speed to combat the "mad lag" they see. Sadly, some of them also chuck the boatload of dough to Cablevision. I hate them and cable companies who promote "triple/quadruple play" packages in general; it's like Microsoft, but with a monthly bill attached.

I look forward to dealing with motorists....

[chaleur]

...who think watching on the freeway is a good idea.

Re:I look forward to dealing with motorists....

[awacs]

... watching movies on the freeway? Using hands-free phones, of course - to keep it legal.

That sounds kind of dodgy

[Anonymous Coward]

Specifically, it sounds slow. Bluetooth maxes out at... what, 721 Kbps? That's a good bit less than your average DSL modem, like half, isn't it? And can bluetooth even get that high or is that a theoretical maximum?

It also sounds expensive. Right now I pay by the minute for my cell plan. Will 3G internet make me do that? Ouch, I'm back in 1993 with the AOL hourly plan again.

It also sounds inconvenient. I don't want my home internet to stop working if I leave the house, or walk more than 20 feet away from the computer with the phone in my pocket, or if I accidentally leave my phone in the car. Does the phone really have to be in bluetooth range to do the 3G internet thing?

At the moment I'm dubious to say the least. Is this reasonable? It just seems like we can do much better than this.

Re:That sounds kind of dodgy

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Specifically, it sounds slow. Bluetooth maxes out at... what, 721 Kbps? That's a good bit less than your average DSL modem, like half, isn't it? And can bluetooth even get that high or is that a theoretical maximum?

Actually, it's only 7kbps less than my DSL modem...and most sites don't even come close to reaching that speed anyway. I've only seen my connection saturated a few times- and mainly because I'm running servers.

It also sounds expensive. Right now I pay by the minute for my cell plan. Will 3G internet make me do that? Ouch, I'm back in 1993 with the AOL hourly plan again.

Nope- T-Mobile already charges a flat rate for Internet access, and I'd expect Verizon has followed suit.

It also sounds inconvenient. I don't want my home internet to stop working if I leave the house, or walk more than 20 feet away from the computer with the phone in my pocket, or if I accidentally leave my phone in the car. Does the phone really have to be in bluetooth range to do the 3G internet thing?

Well there is that- but from both providers you can also get 3G PCMCIA cards and USB dongles.

At the moment I'm dubious to say the least. Is this reasonable? It just seems like we can do much better than this.

What do you want, egg in your beer?

NO!

[Anonymous Coward]

When my cable co says I get 5 megabits, that 5 megabits is NOT shared among my neighbors. What an idiotic and wrong thing to say.

What is accurate is that you and your neighbors share the same coax - if there are 1000 people download Linux ISOs or whatever all at once, chances are there will be congestion.

Re:NO!

[pitdingo]

Sorry, you are wrong. The cable line is shared. That 5Mb is what they have your connection capped at.

this is no different from a DSL provider capping you at 5Mb. The difference is the DSL from your house to the Telco central office is dedicated to you and only you.

DSL can't compete with cable.

[Anonymous Coward]

except in the ways the Bells screw customers over with contracts, termination fees, and insufficient bandwidth.

Please, somebody shoot DSL in the head and put it out of its misery.

telco's are starting to move ahead

[Anonymous Coward]

I work at a small telco in the middle of nowhere and we currently offer dsl, local/long distance and will be offering digital video within the year. Also we are beginning to look into voip which I expect to be the direction we are heading soon. Not bad for a small company in the middle of nowhere and no real cable competitors due to distance between our customers. So not all telco's are behind......

Oh, I wouldn't call it quadruple play

[jforster17]

...I heard it called the Foreplay. It's not clear what happens after that...

    -- Jim

Re:Oh, I wouldn't call it quadruple play

[Anonymous Coward]

Someone gets fucked.

Re:Oh, I wouldn't call it quadruple play

[Anonymous Coward]

I heard it called the Foreplay. It's not clear what happens after that...

after you sign the contract, you're fucked!

Been here, got that

[DynaSoar]

and I pay SBC a lot less than the cable company wants or will want.

Better, SBC is going head to head with cable, trying to get cable channels unbundled.

Let's see:
1. charging more
2. trying to sell what's already available
3. pulling a poor sales job to make it look like it's their idea
4. doing their damnedest to make sure I have to buy tons of crap with the few things I want.

There's your cable quadruple play.

Re:Been here, got that

[ssstraub]

And SBC isn't a terrible, ruthless, pig-headed monopoly just like every major government-mandated cable monopoly?

Please.

What I want: TV via Internet

[DoorFrame]

Here's what I want. If anyone out there works for a cable company, please feel free to pass this along. Currently when I subscribe to cable, not only do I get access to all the shows they air, but I also get limited access, through Comcast's Digital Cable, to something vaguely PVRish... I can watch a select number of shows at any time for free. I can pause them and rewind them as I see fit. If this service is already available, I don't see any reason why I can't have the following feature:

I would like to be able to go online, log into my cable company's webpage, and download any show that's aired since I began my subscription. These are all shows I theoretically have access to already (I could have taped them), so why not allow me to watch them when I want. Give me a username and a password; go ahead and keep track of when I joined and only give me access to content I'm entitled to. Bittorrent distribution is fine, I don't mind contributing a little bit of bandwidth to this scheme.

In addition, I want to be able to schedule downloads of new shows in a PVR like system. So, anytime I decide I like a show, I can download the whole back catalogue since I started my cable subscription, and download every new episode that airs automatically.

Also, I should be able to access this content anywhere, at any time. This would actually be a big selling point if I were presenting this idea to a cable company because it means you could sell something of a discounted product to people outside of your traditional market. Why do I need to deal with Comcast when I can subscribe over the internet to Time Warner, even though they're not in my area? Suddenly, all the cable companies will be competing against each other to provide the best selection of programming at the best price with the most ease of service... something that isn't really happening today.

I'm sure there's legal issues with this from the point of the content producers. All I know is that I'd be happy to download shows via bittorrent with commercials directly from my cable company if they allowed me to do so. I'd be happy to switch away from my local cable company if someone else on the internet could provide me with a better deal. The cable companies already have the rights to distribute the content to end users... this scheme would require a renogotiation, but it's within their power (unlike some crazy startup).

Anyone else interested in this sort of service?

Re:What I want: TV via Internet

[swb]

Anyone else interested in this sort of service?

I hear that P2P has gotten pretty popular, yes. Was this what you were asking?

Re:What I want: TV via Internet

[DoorFrame]

Essentially... but legal. When btefnet was shut down, I couldn't schedule downloads anymore. I'd like to have a reliable service that isn't going to be sued out of business, and isn't going to get ME sued. A pipe dream, I know.

Re:What I want: TV via Internet

[ta ma de]

Was this the whole point behind the Piratebay.org?

Re:What I want: TV via Internet

[swb]

I was being flippant, but what you say should be available. I'd call it a TV subscription version of iTunes, actually.

But you know the usual problems -- DRM, copyright, etc. I suppose there is the minor technical limitaion of getting everything ever shown on TV in some digital format that's easily downloadable, but it'd be just a massively parallel version of Tivo, which ought to be doable in today's world of 500GB HDDs.

Re:What I want: TV via Internet

[maxwells_deamon]

How about the following:

Cable company installs a router at my residence. It has wired and 802.119(%) access for me.

It also has a separate channel which runs a much longer range signal that acts like a short range cell tower.

I get a discount (perhaps packet priority, perhaps not) they get to charge for the service to the cell folks.

Perhaps, because I have an access point at home, I get free wireless internet while on the road

Re:What I want: TV via Internet

[pakenman]

Here in Australia, we don't have online cable companies yet, but I did remember reading a press statement that Foxtel, (www.foxtel.com.au) did have a team looking at delivering tv over a broadband connection. I did search the website but i can't find any trace of it- but I do trust my memory. :)

Re:What I want: TV via Internet

[mikefe]

I'd rather get the ~10K per year they usually rent the land for a cell site.

yes they are

[william_w_bush]

fortunately, the someone to lose will probably not be a consumer.

it's bizarre to see capitalism work in practice as well as theory, but considering the telcos have had their monopoly for almost 100 yrs now perhaps it's time.

Vertical Monopoly

[Doc Ruby]

I don't want to rely on the same company for my Internet connection, both wired and wireless, and the voice, data and video coming over it. Especially one so hostile to customer service as my cable company. Each of those services should be delivered by a competing company, not some monolithic monopoly which controls all my access to information. Which can censor info it doesn't like, like "obscene" or "terrorist" websites. Which can eavesdrop on my calls. Which can cross-reference all my info together. Which can cut off my wired (and unwired) life completely as leverage behind an "accidental" SNAFU in billing me for one service.

There's all kinds of integrated billing / customer service systems that already bundle multiple outsourced services into one bill, one "help desk". That's what cable and phone companies already use to bundle the services they market and control into one "customer relationship". These bundled services are like Microsoft controlling the markets of OS, apps, development and content. And cable companies have even less minority competition to "keep them honest". Bundling like this proposal should be prohibited, to protect consumers. And to create opportunities for entrepreneurs, like an independent "customer care" service that wraps up billing and customer care into one contact. Without creating a bottleneck through a cable company that's guaranteed to fail, with devastating results, all the time, all over the country.

Re:Vertical Monopoly

[Quasar1999]

Rogers located in Canada is one of these vertical monopolies. I've had a few issues with some of their services (related to billing), but overall they are a lot better than telus (my old wireless provider), Golden Triangle (my old DSL provider), and Bell Expressvu (Old Sat tv provider).

Re:Vertical Monopoly

[Doc Ruby]

I trained Rogers "Business Internet Services" how to market broadband to Canadian Fortune 500 companies, in 1997. I told them how applications created demand for broadband, and how that would drive their growth to the consumer. I told them about bundling services as "value adds" to market the infrastructure, and vice versa, depending on the customer's perceived scarcity of service. So it's all my fault :).

I didn't mind so much, though, because although Rogers has more market dominance (monopoly) in Canada than does any American cable company here, they're Canadian. They don't have the slash and burn American corporate mentality. Canadian corporate socialism actually lets Canadians sustain development, while the big guys "take care of it" and make the big bucks. Because Canadian culture is based on making sure everyone survives the Winter, so they can do their thing to help in the Summer. Of course there are plenty of Canadian fascists, but it's not nearly as bad as here in America.

How cable competes...

[benjamindees]

In my area, cable internet is $25/mo, and I don't have to pay for a phone line or cable TV service. Not everyone wants or needs a land line.

Only ONE thing to say... max upload 37kbps

[DaedalusHKX]

at best, you'll get the 37kbytes per sec sustained stream... of course, it will rarely be that, usually getting 27 to 28kbps in busy neighborhoods.

Add in the frequent DNS outages comcast had when I was a customer (and from what my buds in northern Virginia say, comcast still has them) I dare say I'll still take DSL over them... only issue I've ever had with DSL was that it took them awhile to reach the places where I've lived :)

Re:Only ONE thing to say... max upload 37kbps

[ScytheBlade1]

Heh. Regional issues do exist, for sure. The thing is, I just don't happen to have any.

I'm a happy customer.

Re:Only ONE thing to say... max upload 37kbps

[Procyon101]

I don't use Comcast's DNS servers.. No problems here ;)

I was a Comcast customer as little ago as 6 months

[DaedalusHKX]

I STILL had a max sustained rate upstream of 37 kbps :)

I have friends in northern VA and Wash. DC who get no better.

I've actually HAD comcast call me about running a server. I have called their help centers and it has taken me anywhere from 2 days to 3 weeks to get results. (and before you say it, I do not and DID NOT have an open relay running)

Plus, control of the system is VERY important. If I want to change something in the system, it is right in front of me. If I want to deny a user an account, then so be it. They can't sue me, they can't say anything... this is the whole point. And it is STILL cheaper, since I'd be using the DSL anyways. :)

My bandwidth tests with comcast always came back 5.1 MB down/28-37 KB up.

Verizon has come out of nowhere

[tkrotchko]

A few years ago, I thought Verizon was cooked. Long distance was dead, and they were not one of the leaders in wireless, and DSL has always been a bit of a joke outside of heavily populated areas.

But in the Washington DC area, we've seen in the past few years:

1) Verizon Wireless has become one of the leaders for voice.
2) Verizon Wireless offers their 1X service which gives 90-110K web service in most areas of the country
3) in metro areas their EVDO service is now offering mid-speed internet access
4) They still offer DSL
5) In the Washington DC area, they're rolling FIOS out to everybody, far beyond their DSL offering, and they're spending money faster than I've seen anybody short of the military spend money on this rollout. Its amazing.
6) In the process of this rollout, they're getting rid of 40 year old copper infrastructure.
7) Using this fiber they'll be offering increasing video services that strike right at the heart of the cable companies.

Seriously, Comcast should be scared. They looked to be in the driver's seat 3 years ago, but Verizon has come on strong and now Comcast has to come up with an answer. Maybe they'll even start offering decent help desk and helpful employees.

Nah. I think they'd rather go out of businss.

Re:Verizon has come out of nowhere

[moosesocks]

Mod parent up!

Verizon has made a tremendous investment into their infrastructure, and is rolling out their fiber network faster than they rolled out their DSL network. I've had FIOS for about 3 weeks now, and I must say that it's anything short of amazing.

Where Verizon has really delivered, though, is on price. Unlike Cable, Verizon actually has competitors. Cable TV loves price-fixing, and it's rare to see a community with more than one cable franchise, allowing the companies to charge exorbitant rates while gouging their customers. The remarkable thing about Verizon's DSL/FiOS offerings is that they're significantly cheaper than anything else out there. I pay $35/month for 5/2mbps fibre, while getting 3/.768 service from my cable co. costs $60/month. The STATEWIDE franchises that the cable companies have been granted are striking fear into the hearts of the cable companies. I fully expect a huge legal battle to come out of this debating the legality of such franchises to begin with -- Cable is and always has been a legal monopoly. Healthy competition (Verizon in this case) drives prices down. Hopefully once FiOS-TV is rolled out, the cable co's will be forced to cut their rates and start expanding their HD offerings -- FiOS-TV is said to have 300 channels, about 75 of which are in HD.

  I suppose Verizon expects a huge return on their investment in the fibre network. It's costing them a mint. A typical fios install takes 3 installers about 6-8 hours per residence just to do the premesis wiring and termination. On the up-side, the new network will cost them a lot less to operate than their old copper network. Reduced power draw, smaller local COs, and increased reliability to name a few, not to mention that they've finally rid themselves of copper wiring.

Hopefully this and satelitte will finally kill off the corrupt cable-tv industry.

Re:Verizon has come out of nowhere

[Bodero]

Keep in mind, however, that while they are mutually vested in each other, Verizon and Verizon Wireless are separate companies.

I agree with you completely, however. Verizon isn't really on my radar as I don't have DSL service nor do they have a local telco in my area, but Verizon Wireless is a major player (as it is in most major eastern US cities).

Just recently, Verizon Wireless started offering a new plan for their NetworkAccess cards, a $59.99/month plan for regular NA (not the BroadbandAccess that's only available in about 20 cities). I'm seriously considering it, since I don't have BA in my city anyway and the price is a lot better than the $80/month for BA.

Re:Verizon has come out of nowhere

[nsrbrake]

Maybe there is some government contract involved for rolling out fiber around DC? Footing the bill for a good chunk of the line laying would certainly help.

Time Warner Roadrunner Music Store!

[argent]

It's the Quintuple Play! It's a wireless cable modem phone MUSIC PLAYER!

And it's edible, with Zero Carbs! Just don't nibble on your phone before your two year service agreement is up...

All this competition, and still monopolies

[Xtravar]

With all this talk of DSL vs Cable, howcome my cable bill is still like $80/month for sub-par service?

I use maybe 3 channels of cable, and that part of the bill costs 50 bucks! Not to mention, they block my service internet ports and ask me to pay bajillions for a business account to run a personal website.

The DSL around here sucks. The cable around here sucks. Satellite isn't an option because I want 99% reliable internet.

I don't want a land-line. I don't want any web-portal, pop-up blocker tools, tech support, or whatever whiz-bang features ISPs use these days. I don't want 77 of my ~90 TV channels.

I am so fucking tired of these communications companies and their monopolies. I am in a state capitol, a fairly big city. For godsake, I should have better service than they offer. If I lived in the boonies, I would be glad to have internet access at all, but that is not the case.

This is incredibly unfair to consumers. I have no choice but to pay either SBC, Charter, or DirecTV for broadband internet access. I don't want to fund any of those bastards!

Yeah, a little off-topic perhaps, but I need to vent.

Re:All this competition, and still monopolies

[NineNine]

Disconnect your TV from your cable service. Only idiots pay $50/month to have commercials and pseudo-information shoved down their throats. Download, ad-free, the TV shows you want to watch, and be fucking done with it. Why people PAY to watch TV, I'll *never* understand.

Don't forget...

[benjamindees]

Most important:

5) Providing just enough competition to keep SBC et al on their toes...

Just a few years ago SBC was headed towards becoming the next AT&T. All it took was digital cell phones, VoIP, and a massive growth in cable internet to almost completely reverse the trend.

Now they probably think they can put the cable co.'s and whatever cell providers are left out of business by bundling, and quickly get back to business as usual. It's good to see that the cable co.'s at least can play ball.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

DSL competing

[simpsone]

I didn't RTFA, but to answer the poster's question about DSL competing, it already does on price. I can get DSL for as little as $15 a month. That's standard stuff up to 1.5 Mb. Good enough for most anything I do. The cheapest real price I recall seeing for cable (after the 3 month intorductory price) is about $45 a month, plus basic cable. I'm sure it's faster, but it's way more expensive.

Re:DSL competing

[Silkejr]

I agree. It's also better considering that almost every offering by the cable companies have maximum upload rates of around 25kB/s. I mean really, what the hell is a person going to do with that kind of an upload rate? For the same price you can usually go get dsl and have at least 75kB/s. Way better if you want to do fun stuff with your broadband like running a server, online gaming, voip, or p2p.

Re:DSL competing

[/dev/trash]

Where do you get DSL for just $15?

+++
http://www.drudgereport.com for the truth.

It's kinda funny...

[sgant]

I see a bunch of people below saying how great their cable service is and that they'll never change. Most of them, from what I can tell, seem to be using Cox cable.

I was in a similar situation a few years ago. Had a great cable service that was quick to repair, had helpful techs that knew what they were doing. It was called AT&T. But that all changed when Comcast bought them out of the cable division. It quickly went downhill from there.

Don't be surprised if Comcast were to buy out Cox in the future. Then you'll join the ranks of the mediocre.

Re:It's kinda funny...

[Raistlin77]

I've had Comcast since before AT&T took it over (then was retaken back by Comcast), going on 7 years now, and I have yet to have a serious issue. I'd say that's a pretty damn good track record if you ask me.

Re:It's kinda funny...

[sgant]

I have a feeling it depends on where you're at. When I had @home/ATT/Comcast it was in the Chicago area. We didn't have any problems with @home/ATT...but when Comcast took over it was down quite a bit and when you called to try to inform them of an outtage they tried to tell you there is no outtage and there must have been something wrong with your computer. Only after a few hours of tons of people calling in do they get around to working on the outtage they said didn't exist.

Not to mention the way they like to just raise their rates at their whim, the BS of having to pay more for their Internet if you don't use their TV service. They were a pain. I've had too many problems with Comcast to ever go back. At this point in time if I had to choose between Comcast and dial-up, I'd pick dial-up.

Re:I was a Comcast customer as little ago as 6 mon

[Eccles]

Bytes or bits? I just tested my Comcast connection and it claims ~380 kilobits/second upload, ~3.5 megabits/second download.

Re:Battle of the Elephants: Wireless vs. Telcos.

[pcmanjon]

When I switched to DSL from Dialup in 2000, I haven't switched companies or anything. I've always thought my service to be "acceptable". It occasionally goes out, but I assume that is for maintainence or something.

I've been using SWBell (later known as SBC, now known as SBC Yahoo!) ever since, and had no regrets.

I don't either, but the issue is.

[DaedalusHKX]

If I were a regular customer, or if I didn't run my own personal DNS server, I do believe I'd have issues (I've been forced to use my DNS provider's servers to feed into my local server, worked miracles even when comcast's servers are kaput)... of course since I am no longer with them, running my own DNS server is mostly a matter of being prepared should the carrier's servers go down :)

Re:I don't either, but the issue is.

[Procyon101]

No, I mean I use both 1) Other provider's DNS servers that do not go down and are willing to serve me (actually the local DSL's servers that almost never go down *wink *wink) in addition to some public servers. I only have a very lightweight caching server on my end. There's enough DNS servers out there that you can hit that comcast's aren't really neccissary.

Re:I don't either, but the issue is.

[RLiegh]

I haven't been able to find any when I've looked before; would you mind giving me the names/urls of a few?

Re:I don't either, but the issue is.

[Procyon101]

Here's a couple:

http://soa.granitecanyon.com/

There are more out there with a bit of googling.

Re:I don't either, but the issue is.

[rmallico]

genuity has a ton at

4.2.2.4
4.2.2.5
4.2.2.6
4.2.2.7
4.2.2.8

they just flat out work.. i don't use comcast's all.. override the ones i get via dhcp from them and put x.x.x.4 and x.x.x.5 and they are fine...

just ran www.dslreports.com speed test.. 7200/764

nasty fast...

And they're going to do this how....?

[bavid]

How exactly do they plan on making this work? TFA admits that they really have no idea and the cable execs are talking out of their arses, but if you were going to create some sort of 'mobile cable appliance' how would you do it? Where are you going to find enough bandwidth to handle the video?

not impressed

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, wow. a yet another push to add services that few will ever use and at the same time totally ignoring all the people that can't even subscribe to a broadband service. i've been suffering along with my miserable 33.6 connection since 97. 30 miles away, 5mbit dsl, 6mbit cable. The other direction? 26 miles down the road, 1.5mbit dsl. I am within a half hour drive of 4 towns with some kind of high speed internet service (two of which are smaller than we are), while my town has been passed by countless times. (we even had to petition our local telco just to get one of the towns to be a local call to get dialup service)

so why can't the companies just expand their network instead of adding more stuff that no one wants to see tacked onto their bill?

Re:I was a Comcast customer as little ago as 6 mon

[Wonko]

My bandwidth tests with comcast always came back 5.1 MB down/28-37 KB up.

You just answered your own question. You're most definitely not getting 5 megaBYTES downstream (that would be 40 megabit). I will assume you also mixed up your upstream bits vs. bytes. 28-37KB would be 224 - 296 kilobits. I believe Comcast bumped everyone to either 256 or 384 kilobit upstream.

capital B so it would be bytes :) (nt)

[DaedalusHKX]

no text - nt

Re:capital B so it would be bytes :) (nt)

[Anonymous Coward]

In his defence, it's still worth asking the question, however... seems a lot of people apply that shift button erroneously, IMHO.

Re:capital B so it would be bytes :) (nt)

[Eccles]

Capital B may mean bytes, but that would imply he's getting 40 megabits per second downloading speed, and I seriously doubt that.

Quite a bit north of where I am,

[DaedalusHKX]

and further north still than my buds in VA :)

Does 911 Remain Active Even After Service Is Cut?

[Scarletdown]

I've heard, and perhaps some reader here can either confirm or debunk this, that even after service has been terminated on a cell phone, 911 still remains active. If that is true, then anyone who is worried about not having access to 911 away from home could simply shell out the $5 to $10 at any thrift store for a deactivated phone in order to have quick and easy 911 capability.

The consumer

[Anonymous Coward]

gets fvcked by price hikes.

Emergencies & 911

[UnkyHerb]

I've just read a few comments about not having a landline or phone, and being without 911 access. I know quite a few people with deactivated cellphones lying around their house. If it is of a big concern not to have emergency access, why not just ask someone for a deactivated cellphone, or shell out a few dollars and buy a pre-paid and let the plan run out. If you didn't know you can STILL use a deactivated cellular phone to call 911. Why not stay safe and actually have money.

How long will it take DSL to compete?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, for me it's already competitive: I don't want anything other than data. If I wanted wireless data and voice I could have that too (unfortunately I still have to pay for voice though I don't use nor want it - naked DSL where are you?), but I don't like TV and I don't want it even if it's free. Unlike cable, DSL is offered via common carriers, so I can choose my ISP and get far better terms of use than cable companies offer. The opportunity to do business with a responsive local company offering me fair terms of use (servers? sure, what do we care?) is well worth any extra cost, including the inability to watch the tripe and nonsense that most Americans seem incapable of forgoing.

For me, the question is when will cable start to compete?

Speaking about DSL...

[recharged95]

As for DSL vs. cable reliability

I work with comcast...

[Anonymous Coward]

I know comcast is rolling out an 8 mbit connection soon and making 6 mbits standard...

Quadruple *pay*

[Nick Driver]

Around here, the cable TV company wants to implement "quardruple pay" where you have to pay four times as much money as before, for the privilege of getting blasted in the face with a continuous stream of commercials, occasionally broken up by a few sparse minutes here and there, of actual TV program material.

Swis Army Phone

[zippthorne]

What i'd like in a phone

Take calls, play mp3's, browse web, with hdd for downloading, the latest linux distro, keeps me warm in the winter, keeps me cool in the summer, Mega Massage setting for when I'm very tense, Those crazy electric muscle exerciser thingies, heart monitor, video games, High speed gyros for force-feedback during games, video camera, regular camera, multi-format flash card reader, usb connector, RS232 serial interface with data logger, corkscrew, penknife, extra-sharp knife, toothpick, bottle opener, bat-signal, tincture of bat-anti-merry-go-round spray, laser level, laser sight, laser weapon, maser, pants reinforcing field 'cause the phone's got everything, microwave doppler radar, compass, gps, small vial of whisky/gin/vodka/... for sprucing up drinks, mint spray for sprucing up dates, emergency chocolate ration for mountain rescue or sprucing up dates, calender for remembering dates, hypno spray for getting dates despite the gigantic cellphone holster, Forget-o-spray for making the joke, "Is that a rediculously oversized marginally usefull phone in your pocket or...", appear less lame, kitchen sink, Plays episodes of Family Guy when i'm bored

If all those things are added to cell phones, i'll almost be satisfied.

Man, I could cut the cable cord for alot less

[GuitarNeophyte]

I sure could cut the cable cord for alot less than they could. Of course, I'd use something more along the lines of some sidecuts, but hey!

Luke
-----
Have a teaching-about-computer-basics website? Maybe you might want to swap links with ChristianNerds.com?

Re:Man, I could cut the cable cord for alot less

[Anonymous Coward]

RE: Your Sig...

PUT IT IN THE SPOT FOR A SIG, DUMBASS!

Fuckin christ, no wonder everyone thinks the cristian motherfuckers are always pushing their baby book on other people.

Fuck off already.

Townwide tripple play

[grumling]

Instead of POTS over cable, how about a "cordless" phone that works all over town, within x distance of the cable system. Most of us spend the majority of our time somewhat close to our homes (the average commute is about 15 miles, if I recall). It would be somewhat easy to develop a phone that would act as an extension/intercom all over town. I really think that the first cell/mobile phone company that makes it very easy and free to call phones under the same account (much like extensions on wired phones), will clean up and make major inroads to the wired phone world. At this point that seems to be the only real advantage to wired phones.

Oh, and using the cable system to pick up wireless phones using picocellular tech will greatly increase battery life, and make it possible to provide much more bandwidth per call (due to greater frequency reuse). Too bad it won't happen, because of this obsession with wireline phone service by the cable companies. The sad thing is that it is already too late for the wired phone line. Verizon realizes this, since they are one of the few RBOCs that has a real cell network. They can see the growth of cellular and decline of wireline. They aren't loosing wireline customers to cable or CLECs, they are loosing them to cellphones.

Business may be the exception, but greater use of VOIP on internal networks will mean fewer POTS lines overall by business as well.

58 kB broadband?

[POWuhuru]

pathetic that Joe Anyone should defend DSL/tel or Cable co.s in complete disregard of fact that if it weren't for competation/self interests + regulation that forces them to raise bandwidth, home broadband would be in the 58k-80k range.

My DSL already has that

[sxpert]

http://adsl.free.fr/ offers a DSL modem with voice, video, internet and wifi...

FIber

[Anonymous Coward]

I wanna know why I have this huge fiber pipe running right through the middle of my town, and I'm still stuck with "3mb" WiMAX that actually runs at about 600kbits\s. I'm sharing bandwidth with like 500 people, and yet I can spit and hit a fiber optic connection across the street from me... What gives?

New... for the USA.. Old news for france

[Feint]

In france, I subscribe to Free (www.free.fr)
I have Video, Data (20Mbit), TV, and wireless.. and it's been available for months now.
It all comes over the adsl connection.. (which does not necessarily imply a France Telecom subscription)

If I decide I don't like free.fr, there are at least 2 other competitors on the market with the same package..

So what's the big deal? Once you have the bandwidth to the user, its just software that provides the services.. (and a little hardware - the freebox)

Why is a cable company so special when they do it? Oh yeah.. its the USA...

Re:New... for the USA.. Old news for france

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is a cable company so special when they do it? Oh yeah.. its the USA...

Oh shove off, you uppity frog! So what if we pay out the ass for subpar internet service because this country is rigged to benefit corporations over individuals! We have our freedom! At least, I think we do.

Re:New... for the USA.. Old news for france

[Just Some Guy]

France has slightly more than 1/17th the land area of the United States. It also has roughly 3.6 times the average population per unit area.

It is to be expected that small, dense countries should be able to build infrastructure more quickly than larger, emptier ones.

Well that sounds like an ISP problem.

[Gldm]

I had no problems with my cablemodem during a power failure.

You remember that big east coast blackout? I live on Long Island. I got home about 7pm, after 2-3 hours crawling through insane traffic because all the lights were down. I unplugged my auto-shutdown desktop, and plugged my laptop into the 1500VA CyberPower UPS that the cablemodem and router share.

I was still on IRC most of the night. People kept asking me "Wait, aren't you in New York?" To which I replied "Yes, and my ISP obviously has a backup generator." My service didn't cut out until around 1am, when the governor got on the radio and told everyone in the state to turn off everything they could so the power grid could be rebalanced and restarted. Then my cable went out and I went to bed.

If your VOIP and cable are dying in a power failure, either you need a UPS, or your ISP does. If you ISP doesn't have one, find one that does, I'm sure someone out there has a reliable business class VOIP and internet solution that won't go down when the lights flicker.

Re:Well that sounds like an ISP problem.

[Anonymous Coward]

Considering the amount of backup power units (gas and battery) that telcos use in their COs due to the life and death natre of the telephone (vs cable tv), DSL is a better choice in this regard.

Re:Well that sounds like an ISP problem.

[argent]

I'm so happy for you, that your ISP has a UPS. I don't know if my cable company has a UPS, I know that I don't have enough UPS to run my cable modem and firewall for 7 hours, but I know that the local telco central office has a whole bleeding floor full of batteries and a motor generator and an emergency disaster plan that involves priority allocation of gasoline trucks, and I don't have to pay for business-class internet service to benefit from all this.

Heck, given what "business class" costs here, I could pay for POTS and a VOIP second line and Internet and come out ahead.

VOIP - You're an alpha geek, you can make it reliable. All it takes is money.

POTS - It just works. And it's even cheap. And your grandmother can handle it.

Oh really?

[Gldm]

DSL is commonly oversubscribed at 20:1 and 50:1 ratios to the backbone bandwidth. It's true, look it up. When my cable ISP says "You have 10mbps download." I pull 1200KB/sec off an FTP. The line drops me on an average of less than once a YEAR. Beat that!

Cable bandwidth delivers, it's just the upstream that sucks.

Re:Battle of the Elephants: Wireless vs. Telcos.

[Scarblac]

What investors are trying to understand is who remains standing with a semblance of a profitable business at the end of it. Each side is desperately trying not to end up being a "dumb pipe", but have a valuable "walled garden" of services to keep customers paying $50, 100 or more per month per household.

Problem with that is that, as far as I can see it, the last thing a customer wants is a walled garden. They're always very limited and boring, and expensive.

Article is 90% worthless fluff

[serutan]

The only line in the article that says anything concrete:

the addition of a wireless component to the cable bundle of services is primarily in the planning stages

Cabeless Cable v DSL

[blankgm]

Well, since DSL still isn't available to a majority of Americans (as is the case here) I wouldn't put too much stock in it as an alternative. And since technology almost appears to be outdated by the time it hits the street, I wouldn't put too much in this new one either. FTTP however, which is rolling out here ("any time now") might be a worthwhile alternative - especially with all the limitations the cable companies have put in their AUP including: no gaming, no web hosting, no blog hosting, no video feed, no audio feed, no web surfing, no e-mailing and no fun. Ok so the last half of those was an exageration for effect, but I have to ask, what is the point of a multi-meg pipe if not for gaming or hosting? Especially since the re-interpretation of 2257 has shut down most US based pr0n? Once you eliminate that, gaming and hosting your own site, does anyone really need more than a couple K? What else is left? Lets just roll it all back to dial-up and be done with it!

American Cable Companies are Slow

[yukk]

Rogers in Canada already has all of this. They have cable, home phone service, VOIP and a wireless division that brings in a huge chunk of their profits and includes a couple of different wireless data networks. http://www.rogers.com/

Wireless MMO? I hate to admit it...

[Lanoitarus]

...but i would totally spring for a service that let me manage bits of my World of Warcraft account wirelessly. Even just to control my auctions, text based only. Yum.

I wasn't defending telcos, and I'm impressed.

[DaedalusHKX]

We don't get Time Warner here, and the telcos suck in the people service arena as badly as the cable co. I just got better service from the dsl people than I did from the cable people. We didn't get it from the V company you mentioned above (presuming you mean Verizon, and they SUCK!) we had it through Covad.

My personal favorite in recent months has been speakeasy... they cost a few dollars more, but damn do they deliver :)

Re:I wasn't defending telcos, and I'm impressed.

[Phreakiture]

We don't get Time Warner here, and the telcos suck in the people service arena as badly as the cable co.

Yes, I realise that being in TW territory is a geographical advantage in this case.

I just got better service from the dsl people than I did from the cable people. We didn't get it from the V company you mentioned above (presuming you mean Verizon, and they SUCK!) we had it through Covad.

Secret's out! Yes, Verizon was involved. Of course, the part I didn't share before is that I was not trying to get Verizon DSL, but Telocity (which has since been swallowed up by DirecTV) because Telocity was about the only ISP I could find that would not run screaming when I said "Linux" to them on the phone.

Verizon, however, kept buggering up the provisioning. Now I don't care who you try to get DSL from, you are at the mercy of the IBOC. For this reason, I very strongly belive that the IBOC's should be forbidden from selling DSL, because I find it awfully convenient that they couldn't provision a competitor's product correctly.

Interesting part is that this all happened five years ago, and I am still sore about it. I still have hanging in my cubicle at work a souvenir of the time.... I made my statement about VZ by building a tin-can phone, emblazoning it with VZ's logo and hanging it in my cubicle.

My personal favorite in recent months has been speakeasy... they cost a few dollars more, but damn do they deliver :)

I dunno. Maybe I might give DSL another shot, but right at the moment, I don't need to. Road Runner has been awesome to me since 2000, with actually less downtime than my wireline telephone (although more, shorter actual outages). The only reason I stick with VZ for telephone service is that they are cheaper than the competitors, and with a competitor, if something goes awry, you are still at VZ's mercy.

Service?

[WhiteFangRMB]

As far as I'm concerned, cable companies - outlying components of the bigger telecommunications empires that we keep hearing about - will never be able to compete with DSL services. This is not due to their technical performance, but rather, due to their commitment (or lack thereof) to providing reliable customer service. Locally, contacting the cable company (Comcast in these parts) for support, billing services, and what-not has never been anything but a nightmare, whereas DSL services, lacking the marketing power and range of cable services, typically provide an almost "small town" sense of one community member helping another out. For all I know, this could just be my personal experience, but I've heard similar reports from other folks in my area.

First step....

[gatkinso]

...if they want to go wireless.

Stop referring to themselves as CABLE (which is simply a wire) companies.

DSL and cable are not companies

[fahrbot-bot]

Although people seem to interchange DSL and cable/broadband with their Phone Co. and Cable Co., perhaps they should be more clear. The former are technologies, the latter vendors delivering those technologies.

Just because your Telco/Cabco provides better/worse DSL/Broadband, doesn't make the experience universal for the technology, just the vendor.

In this case, it's your cable company's policies that's blocking your ports -- which has nothing to do with either the DSL or Broadband technologies.

Re:DSL and cable are not companies

[DaedalusHKX]

If cable providers could provide whta they call "business cable" (5mb down 256 up) without charging 229.99/mo I'd take it :)

And then there's that little issue with their DNS servers.... everyone ends up using their domain name provider's DNS servers or perhaps those of a local mom and pop ISP since they're generally more reliable. Of course this experience extends only to myself and my friends, and we all live on the east coast of the USA, with a minor few exceptions in canada, sweden and europe at large.

Re:DSL and cable are not companies

[fahrbot-bot]

Actually, I have Cox (south-eastern Virginia) and subscribe to 4mb down, 512 up and routinely get almost that -- according to DSL Reports speed tests. I pay $49.00/month. So far I have absolutely no complaints with the service (or DNS, though I am not running any servers).

Broadband w/o cable TV...

[fahrbot-bot]

Although your mileage may vary, Broadband subscribers are generally not required to get cable TV to receive network services. For example, Cox cable offers them separately, though provides a $10.00 discount for Broadband customers w/cable TV.

Though DSL is generally cheaper, cable broadband generally tends to offer higher speeds. A speed vs. price comparison may show DSL and cable to be similar...

Again, your mileage may vary.

max upload 37kbps? Man, you are so wrong...

[Anonymous Coward]

I have no idea what you are talking about. In my area I get 7M up and 768K down. That works out to 76+KB per sec upload. OF course I pay that extra $10 a month for upgraded service, but I was getting 50+ before that. I live in a pretty crowded node too...

Cover the basics first

[Sleestackalicious]

If the cable industry wants to attend to the needs of mobile customers, they could start by providing good old dial-up ISP service to their subscribers. Most DSL companies provide this already. I've got Comcast, and when I hit the road I have to use a free dial-up service or buy broadband from a hotel. Before they try to sell me some lame mobile video version of "The Fan", Comcast would be wise to focus on the basics first.

Mail servers on Time Warner

[eheimer]

I am also a Timer Warner customer and likewise am naming them because I have been extremely satisfied with the level of service I get from them.

I have been running a secure mail server for about two years and have had no attempts by TW to block and no harrassment from them to take it down. On the other hand, I have a friend who was also a TW customer and who had set up an Exchange email server but did not understand about open relays and such. They shut down port 25 on him within a couple hours of his server spewing forth unrelenting spam.

So yes, they do watch it, but as long as you're responsible it seems they will leave you alone.

Cox isn't bad. I've lived in VA

[DaedalusHKX]

Comcast was by far the worst, followed closely by verizon and as of late, by Cavalier's DSL service which is nearly as crappy. Best service I got in the area was speakeasy... but they've done me well no matter where I went. Cox was allright. My family still uses them for home cable/internet.

Then go with Sprint...

[sean.peters]

And with the cellular airtime charges, you'll end up paying as much as if you'd bought Cable and DSL as backups to each other.

PCS Vision is priced at a flat rate.

Sean

Re:Then go with Sprint...

[argent]

PCS Vision is priced at a flat rate.

Like hell it is.

$40/month ... 20MB
$55/month ... 50MB
$80/month ... 300MB

Additional kilobytes $0.002.

Additional $0.20/minute charge for calls made on PCS Connection Cards(TM) with voice capability.

300MB per month?

I've got more than 300MB in my download history just for this morning.

Re:Then go with Sprint...

[mikefe]

That's just for the wireless web to your phone.

You can get a Cell PC Card to plug into your laptop that gives you unlimited access at a flat rate...

Re:Then go with Sprint...

[argent]

You better recheck your bell, man, or maybe you've got a grandfathered deal. Those were the currently offered prices for the PC Card without voice support. Voice added an additional airtime charge.

Oh good lord no!

[eno2001]

The cable industry barely "gets" the internet. They have horrible AUPs for their internet access. They don't allow you to run your own servers. They prohibit VPN unless you pay for "business class" service. Screw that. I should be able to do whatever the hell I want to with my net connection. Period. No limits. No extra fees. No nothing.

Re:Does 911 Remain Active Even After Service Is Cu

[Anonymous Coward]

911 remains active.

I was riding with a friend about 2 years ago and

was in an accident, I grabbed his cell phone to

call 911, and he said 'it won't work, my service is disconnected'

911 went thru.

There are some groups that collect old cell phones

for 911 only for battered spouses, etc

from what I've heard in the past

[DaedalusHKX]

actually Road runner is one of the good isps out there... (I've heard good things about them in the past, but they don't service my area).

Service is crap in most places indeed, welcome to the windows generation... seems every place that switches to windows also hires low paid, uncaring employees and then periodically cycles them for being "unproductive"... is it a trend (or was that just a standard rhetorical question?)

in all honesty it just seems that there needs to be a seriously heavy form of control in place where huge companies are reduced in number and power... I don't see any other way in allowing small companies to do their thing (and when I lived in va, there used to be an ISP, a small startup called widomaker and a telco called cavalier... before they got big, their service was bar none... top notch, etc) (widomaker was a sunos/freebsd isp btw) Wido is still a mom and pop shop and does good service... cavalier, to my knowledge has declined for the last 2 or 3 years... guess its all those MCSE's hanging around providing "quality support".