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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?"
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.
Oh, wait.
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?
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
...who think watching on the freeway is a good idea.
I don't see why your plan isn't working already! It's got all the buzzwords, after all...
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...
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.
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.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
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.
www.wavefront-av.com