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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?"
I think that's FiOS's job.
I don't get it.
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?
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.
" What luck for rulers that men do not think" - Adolf Hitler
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.
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.
--
make install -not war
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
" What luck for rulers that men do not think" - Adolf Hitler
Too bad VOIP does not work when there is no power...
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.
Buckle your ROFL belt, we're in for some LOLs.
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.
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