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What's Next in Telecommunications?

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the hopefully-competition-gets-prices-under-control dept.

CNet is reporting that with the telecommunication industry's annual powwow coming up the hot button seems to be television rather than phones. From the article: "Judging from the diverse list of keynote speakers, it's easy to see that the phone business is readying itself for cataclysmic change. The traditional telecommunications market has already begun consolidating in anticipation. [...] Putting itself back together two decades after being broken apart, the new AT&T faces an entirely different competitive environment. Phone companies and cable companies will soon be competing directly with each other not just for broadband customers, but also for TV and phone customers."

86 comments

  1. This word 'competing'... by Telastyn · · Score: 3, Funny

    you keep using that word; I do not think it means what you think it means.

    1. Re:This word 'competing'... by PitaBred · · Score: 1

      I rather think it is you who doesn't understand it. Instead of the telephone companies all colluding to lock others out of their market, and the cable companies doing the same, we now have two networks going to nearly every home, both competing to provide the same services. I know Comcast and Qwest here in Colorado both tout how much better their service is than their competitors, and my connection speed keeps going up for the same price every month. Competition is good.

      --
      My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
    2. Re:This word 'competing'... by boldtbanan · · Score: 3, Funny

      Taken from the Telecom dictionary:

      compete
      intr. v. competed, competing, competes

      To strive against another or others to attain a goal, such as an advantage or a victory, usually with the help of other large companies who can force laws through Congress in order to protect corporate interests

      use: That telecom company competed it's customers to death with a sledgehammer

    3. Re:This word 'competing'... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      don't worry, it was an inside joke, and you're on the outside

    4. Re:This word 'competing'... by joranbelar · · Score: 1
      use: That telecom company competed it's customers to death with a sledgehammer

      You keep using that word - "it's" - I do not think it means what you think it means.

    5. Re:This word 'competing'... by __aalnoi707 · · Score: 1

      Its totally in-concieveable that no-one got that reference! My name is creeves1982, you killed my father, perpare to DIE!

      I got it telastyn

    6. Re:This word 'competing'... by Squonk23 · · Score: 1

      No more rhymes, I mean it! Anybody want a peanut?

    7. Re:This word 'competing'... by really? · · Score: 1

      Dude, you are forgetting that it's been almost twenty years since that movie. That's right, it's been so long ago .... those days television was called books.:-)

      My favourite scene:

      Vizzini: I can't compete with you physically, and you're no match for my brains.
      Westley: You're that smart?
      Vizzini: Let me put it this way. Have you ever heard of Plato, Aristotle, Socrates?
      Westley: Yes.
      Vizzini: Morons.

      --

      "Consistency is contrary to nature, contrary to life. The only completely consistent people are the dead." A. Huxley
    8. Re:This word 'competing'... by infernocturnal · · Score: 1

      Television kills the telephone star

  2. Competing? Don't you mean... by fatduck · · Score: 2, Funny

    "Television, the new phone-killer!"

    --
    Making you think you're crazy is a billion dollar industry.
  3. Destruction of "standards" by dada21 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I think we'll start seeing more convergence between the various standards -- today I watch more "television" on my PDA than I do on my actual television screen. I probably watch more on my t809 Samsung cell phone than on my TV, too.

    AT&T re-merging means nothing to me as AT&T (and Comcast and T-Mobile and the Chicago Tribune and WGN radio) mean nothing to me at all -- they're all dated mechanisms that came about because of the FCC allowing them what no individual had a right to anymore: the airwaves. The local communities were colluding with the cartels as well, giving right of way to only a few select companies in exchange for a nice chunk of change over the decades. I constantly bring grief to my village council meetings when I decry the few dollars Comcast continues to pay the village for every bill they collect.

    I see such a great waste in available bandwidth due to excessive (and in my mind unconstitutional) FCC regulation of frequencies. For me, data is data and I just want to get at it faster and in more areas. To think that we're still going to send data over the UHF and VHS frequencies 50,000 watts at a time in a "one size fits all" broadcast is unthinkable. Those same frequencies could be better used to let people get what they want, when they want, in the form they want, at the price they want. Imagine how much more bandwidth would be available if the frequencies were available for the NEXT wireless standards.

    The typical replies to a proposal such as this are "someone will broadcast on every frequency so no one can communicate" or "without regulation we'd get interference all over the place." I can not see someone broadcasting 50,000 watts on every frequency as the power needed to run a transmittor at that power on every frequency would quickly bankrupt the transmitter. A brigand could send random bursts on random frequencies, but a good software radio can frequency hop fast enough to not make this a problem. The idea of interference is also reduced by the software radio idea -- plus the fact that transmitters want to get the signal out more than they want to block the signal gives me the belief that we won't see these problems. An advertiser in today's market COULD by every advertisement spot on every media format, but no one has. Why is that?

    We have to stop thinking in terms of television, radio, cell phone, WiFi, narrowband, broadband, etc. Those terms can be filed next to telegraph. For me, I want real convergence: manufacturers finding ways to frequency hop faster, incorporating software radios that can adjust to what the receiver and the sender need rather than be shoehorned into a narrow band of frequencies and amplifier power.

    Yet we all know -- or should know -- that the frequencies aren't regulated for the people, they're regulated to keep control of the system in the hands of the elite -- the distribution cartels. Nothing will change over time, in fact I believe we'll see our beloved Internet regulated "to protect the people" but in reality it'll be regulated to protect the content cartels. The RIAAs, the MPAAs, the publisher's associations and all the various collusive elements that controlled information yesterday are looking to control information tomorrow, and most people will not mind.

    I mind because I see the power of data -- a small packet of information that isn't important until it is used. To think that we have gigahertz of bandwidth being used to try to give everyone the same thing is beyond me, and part of the reason I hate the FCC and want to see it disbanded completely so that society has a chance to meet our own needs in the future -- one IP connection at at time.

    1. Re:Destruction of "standards" by MindStalker · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I constantly bring grief to my village council meetings when I decry the few dollars Comcast continues to pay the village for every bill they collect. Thats nothing, my local city gave a grant intended to help a small buisness with tech training to the local comcast to train their employees in installing their new digital services.......

    2. Re:Destruction of "standards" by dada21 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Thats nothing, my local city gave a grant intended to help a small buisness with tech training to the local comcast to train their employees in installing their new digital services.......

      Or, better put, "My local city stole money from current and future taxpayers in order to give the money to someone else."

      Very sad.

    3. Re:Destruction of "standards" by interiot · · Score: 3, Interesting
      Also along those lines... Just because it's possible for one person to park in the middle of a road, and tie up traffic for 20 minutes, doesn't mean we dedicate roads to individual organizations. If a person tries to disrupt physical traffic, soon enough a police officer comes along, identifies the individual, and eventually an appropriate penalty is handed out.

      With radio signals, it's a bit harder to identify someone who's trying to be disruptive, but it's also easier to jump to another "road" that's not busy. And if a perpetrator really disrupting a large number of channels, that makes it all the easier to identify them.

    4. Re:Destruction of "standards" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Here's the problem - your vision is quite persuasive to me and to a /. audience, but I don't think it's that appealing to your average citizen. The telephone is a great product because it has a simple interface - pick up handset, dial numbers, and connection happens. TV is even simpler -- turn on TV, enter channel numbers or just use UP/DOWN to switch between them. These are things you can sell to millions of people and millions can use them happily because the interface is simple.

      Now I know that a TV station is just a multicast video stream, which could just as easily be delivered over a general-purpose IP connection. And the same for telephones -- it's just two voice streams between endpoints, and some handshaking protocols.

      The problem is that general-purpose transport systems like the internet result in a multiplicity of interfaces which are difficult to standardize into useful products (and I don't just mean commercial products). Think of email, for example. Thankfully people are almost universally using DNS with MX records, and SMTP to get the messages delivered. But there's plain text email, rich text email, HTML email, weird hybrids of those, S/MIME, PGP, GPG, inline attachments, and who knows how many other ways to format the payload. It's not seamless.

      It takes something like the FCC to standardize TV, or now HDTV, into specific resolutions, codecs, etc. Otherwise you get embrace-and-extend issues, and it doesn't Just Work the way millions of people need it to. Now, assuming you have specified the system like the FCC does, and you're going to have thousands of pieces of production hardware, and millions of pieces of consumption hardware, the leap to using purpose-allocated frequencies for transmission doesn't seem all that illogical, especially when it's the only way to really guarantee the quality of service necessary for a good video stream. (I know you're right about using these frequencies more efficiently with an on-demand general access model, but I don't think it's super-realistic.)

      Point being, unless you NAIL down a central spec for running these consumer-level applications over IP, your generalized super-duper wireless network will be fragmented on the application layer, and mis-prioritized on the transport layer, and you will have trouble delivering the real simple applications that consumers want.

    5. Re:Destruction of "standards" by joecr · · Score: 1

      I'm glad my city like other cities in this area were smart enough to do this. Now the city has created competition for Qwest, Comcast and the other Internet providers in the area. Yes I do live in Provo, & I can't use iProvo yet.

    6. Re:Destruction of "standards" by woolio · · Score: 1

      And if a perpetrator really disrupting a large number of channels, that makes it all the easier to identify them.

      Well, sorta... (If they stay in one place long enough for triangulation to work)

      But if there are many perpetrators (lots of software radios infected with a "virus"), then you essentially have a DDOS attack in the wireless domain... That would not be easy to circumvent nor detect. Especially if they are in a densely populated (wireless user) area.

      Although the "software" in a wireless radio operates at a very low level compared to user applications, I'm sure someone will manage to screw this [security] up one day.

    7. Re:Destruction of "standards" by Rhipf · · Score: 1
      If a person tries to disrupt physical traffic, soon enough a police officer comes along

      This is essentially what the FCC was intended to do. Instead of coming along after the fact to fix the problem they try to solve the problem ahead of time by making sure the broadcasters weren't stomping on each other's signal. The proliferation of Wi-Fi is starting to cause problems like this. Since the 2.4GHz frequency is free for use and everyone and their mother is making a device that operates at this frequency, saturation of the frequency is occuring. That is why some people have trouble using Wi-Fi in their location.

  4. Perhaps not too far from the truth by MoonFog · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Here in Norway we've seen a rise of companies offering "triple play", i.e. phone, broadband and cable all over fiberoptics. Affordable prices as well, especially the phone is a lot cheaper than what regular phone providers offer.

    1. Re:Perhaps not too far from the truth by BewireNomali · · Score: 2, Interesting

      i subscribe to such a service here in NY. About $120 US a month for all three, where I was paying about $80 US for a DSL/phone line (with no long distance) before.

      Upside: obvious. Speed, etc. Downside, I find myself watching more television and I hate that. I didn't have cable before.

      --
      un burrito me trampeó.
    2. Re:Perhaps not too far from the truth by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      About $30 in romania for tri-play.

  5. Buy Recommendation by Quirk · · Score: 3, Funny
    tinfoil

    buy tinfoil

    --
    "Academicians are more likely to share each other's toothbrush than each other's nomenclature."
    Cohen
    1. Re:Buy Recommendation by Sitxu · · Score: 0

      resistance is useles as well as conductivity

      http://people.csail.mit.edu/rahimi/helmet/

      --
      cualquier vaina hagase el muerto
    2. Re:Buy Recommendation by rtaylor · · Score: 1

      buy tinfoil

      Damnit. My plans have been foiled again.

      --
      Rod Taylor
    3. Re:Buy Recommendation by the+eric+conspiracy · · Score: 2, Informative

      The CIA has bought up all the supplies of genuine tin and replaced them with aluminum. Aluminum unfortunately merely concentrates mind control rays - this is why it is available so cheaply at your local grocer.

  6. Telecom irrelevance? by Doubting+Maxwell · · Score: 2, Informative
    "Across the board, there's going to be very little talk of traditional wireline phone services, which is kind of funny since that's been the phone companies' bread and butter for a hundred years," said Laszlo. "But it just goes to show how the industry is changing."
    Sounds like even the telecom industry is catching on to the fact that the Internet has made such service (e.g., tiered landline service) nearly irrelevant! Or at least, we'd hope so.

    I'd like to see the day where one pays for Data in and out -- nothing more. You get all of your services (TV, phone, internet, etc.) over one line. Heh. Like that'll ever happen.
    1. Re:Telecom irrelevance? by rcamera · · Score: 1

      You get all of your services (TV, phone, internet, etc.) over one line. Heh. Like that'll ever happen.

      it happened... or was that sarcasm?

      --
      Wave upon wave of demented avengers March cheerfully out of obscurity into the dream
    2. Re:Telecom irrelevance? by Alex+P+Keaton+in+da · · Score: 1

      I'd like to see the day where one pays for Data in and out -- nothing more. You get all of your services (TV, phone, internet, etc.) over one line. Heh. Like that'll ever happen.
      Why the line? In theory, one can get their phone, internet (although I hear it doesn;t work in cities due to the canyon effect- but there will be repeaters eventually) and tv (Sort of with v-cast) from verizon with no wires. It won't be long before we dont need wires for most things. (Unless Tesla comes back we will need electrical wores for a while longer- until everything runs on fuel cells or solar batteries or something)
      Think about how total wifi coverage will change everything. No more need for XM etc.

      --
      And All I Ask is a Tall Ship And a Star to Steer Her By
    3. Re:Telecom irrelevance? by jacksonj04 · · Score: 1

      I want to know where these electrical wores come from... I want one.

      That aside, cable is generally speaking superior for things which don't plan on moving around much. It could just be me, but I quite like my PC having internet and suchlike working regardless of atmospheric conditions, storms, people using the microwave etc.

      I'm all in favour of blanket WiFi, as long as there are still physical sockets points and an accepted standard (Cat5 + RJ45 for preference) for plugging things into them. Just run fibre to a joint switch/router/access point in each building and let people take it from there as far as I'm concerned - capacity for both.

      --
      How many people can read hex if only you and dead people can read hex?
    4. Re:Telecom irrelevance? by timeOday · · Score: 1
      I'd like to see the day where one pays for Data in and out -- nothing more. You get all of your services (TV, phone, internet, etc.) over one line. Heh. Like that'll ever happen.
      I already get TV, phone, and Internet over one line, the Comcast cable line. Is that somehow not what you meant?
    5. Re:Telecom irrelevance? by Alex+P+Keaton+in+da · · Score: 1

      I want to know where these electrical wores come from... I want one.
      Thanks for correcting my typo!
      Are you an English teacher, or just an asshole? Perhaps both!
      Have an awesome day buddy! And thanks again! I really appreciate your help!

      --
      And All I Ask is a Tall Ship And a Star to Steer Her By
  7. Obligatory content-free prognistication by sreekotay · · Score: 2, Interesting

    VOIP + WiMax (or some such) will up end destroying core Cel and Hardline businesses, unless they are successful in tiering Internet access (i.e. charging or prioritzing certain content-providers/websites) - which would be a BAD thing.

    Barring that, it'll become about triple or quadruple pay (voice, IP, cable, etc.) bundles of access, as it has in Europe.

    I think the latter scenario is good for consumers, the former, well not so much.

    What's not clear to me is how, even with open web services (ala Web 2.0 hype) how any company but the big players profit. Unless, I guess, "getting bought" maybe counts?
    --
    graphicallyspeaking

    --
    graphically speaking
  8. Networks are more efficient and feature-filled by Frozen+Void · · Score: 2, Funny

    Welcome to the Internet.
    Phone Voip with a low-latency connection
    TV Video Torrents
    Radio Webcasting
    The thing is you need a Real good connection to use those.Internet will slowly supersede all communication methods.

    1. Re:Networks are more efficient and feature-filled by the.o.ster.66 · · Score: 1

      i don't see the internet doing anything "slowly". think back 3 years ago...5 years? we're on one helluva roller coaster - put your arms up, coz here we go!

    2. Re:Networks are more efficient and feature-filled by Frozen+Void · · Score: 1

      Not everyone has 100mbps fibers in their home.

    3. Re:Networks are more efficient and feature-filled by the.o.ster.66 · · Score: 1

      i was speaking more in terms of technological advances and applications, not necessarily in terms of speed. integration is bounding forward pretty quickly.

  9. I don't mind by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I'd be willing to let cable companies compete in the cell phone market too. If they give me free cable, I'll let them put a cell tower or WiFi point on the tree my backyard.

    Wonder if it can even be powered by solar.

  10. Interesting choice of word by Weaselmancer · · Score: 1, Offtopic

    Judging from the diverse list of keynote speakers, it's easy to see that the phone business is readying itself for cataclysmic change.

    Cataclysmic? Not so sure the telcos and big media companies would enjoy that word very much. A cataclysm killed the dinosaurs, you know.

    --
    Weaselmancer
    rediculous.
  11. who needs a provider for wireless? by troll+-1 · · Score: 3, Informative

    And then there's wireless, with companies such as Ruckus Wireless adapting Wi-Fi for broadband video.

    I wish the FCC would assign more useful shortwave parts of the spectrum to the ISM band for 802.x so we could start experimenting with meshing and maybe be like amateur radio where you buy your equiment and get online using an open standard with no company involded.

    Who needs a provider when the airways are a zero cost medium?

    1. Re:who needs a provider for wireless? by iibagod · · Score: 1

      Who needs a provider when the airways are a zero cost medium?

      Who else would pay Senatorial salaries?

      The airwaves go to those with the money. "Public Access" just keeps enough votes to ensure the continuing influx of bribes^H^H^H^H kickbacks^H^H^H^H^H^ hookers^H^H^H^H "campaign contributions".

      God bless America.

    2. Re:who needs a provider for wireless? by timeOday · · Score: 1

      I've never understood how mesh wireless makes any sense. Can you really imagine google's traffic all coming into their datacenter wirelessly? How would you like to be the next hop over passing data to/from them through your laptop? Wireless networks are almost always built on top of wired networks. For instance, the wired networks that connect cellphone towers to the world. The wired infrastructure is really cheap when you think how much revenue it will bring in over the years. I only wish we had municipal fiber, instead of a company to whom I will forever pay over $1000 / year and yet never own anything. It's "their" network, even though I pay the bills.

    3. Re:who needs a provider for wireless? by troll+-1 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Can you really imagine google's traffic all coming into their datacenter wirelessly?

      With all due respect, and though you raise a very valid point as to practicality, I think all we're asking is for the FCC to give us the resources that will allow us the freedom to experiment and solve our own problems.

      These problems cannot be overcome today. But in the future who knows, what with multiplexing and models of data distribution, what ingeneous solutions someone may come up up with tomorrow? All we're saying is give us the tools and (maybe) we'll finish the job. At least let us try by assigning the bandwidth that will allow us to make an attempt at a solution.

      A completely wireless Internet is feasible.

    4. Re:who needs a provider for wireless? by Agent+Green · · Score: 1

      While the airwaves technically are zero-cost, you're neglecting one very important economic principle: scarcity.

      Mesh networks and such sound nice and great, but you'll never be able to near the traffic that you can with guided media like copper and fiber. Also, unless you set aside a transmit and receive frequency between each member in a mesh, you'll always have a problem with collisions. It's the nature of the beast.

      Also, problems that arise in a wireless environment require specialized tools and skills for diagnostics. And no, most wireless cards do not have these capabilities. For example, you might need a scope to prove out a shoddy transmitter.

      Ham operators have a lot more bands open to them, but they also need to be careful to adhere to protocol, can't encrypt anything, and are limited to personal use of the airwaves. Using APRS as example of a data link, it becomes challenging to get a short message out in the more dense areas of population. I'm not even talking about having tons of hams, but get a few dozen people transmitting beacons every other minute or so, along with home stations, weather stations, and other digipeater services, and it can become a very noisy environment. Tune into 144.390 MHz and give it a listen. Better yet, get your license and participate.

      Lastly, useful bandwidth isn't as plentiful as you think. As the frequency of a signal gets higher, so does its attenuation, which then means more power for transmit. Optimal signal transmission also requires antennas to be tuned for the specific frequency they transmit on, such that the power of that transmission doesn't reflect back to the equipment. I suppose you could multiplex a lot of tranceivers for a wide data pipe. It's not unlike how a lot of 802.11g APs work, by concatenating more than the single channel normally assigned.

      Still, the collision problem doesn't get solved. When too many transmitters compete, nobody wins.

      --
      // Agent Green (Ian / IU7 / KB1JQO)
      // IEEE 802.3: All 10base Are Belong To Us
    5. Re:who needs a provider for wireless? by troll+-1 · · Score: 1

      The attentuation you're talking about is the wavelength/(2*pi) "skin depth" which is why we need more shortwave and more of a spectrum spread to counter the baud limitation.

      If we're talking about plain old analog bandwidth with no algorithms then you're right, there's probably not enough to go around. But if we take significant chunks of the entire spectrum using short and long waves, combine multiplexing, and data caching/distribution models not unlike bittorent, it just may be possible to develop a pretty good working system.

      Technology has an amazing way of evolving ingenuity. Take interfence for example. Collision dectection/aviodance was unthinkable even to the best engineers just a few years ago. The idea that you could run 100 access points within range of each other and get megabit throughput was thought impossible. Yet from my rooftop in downtown San Francisco I can see 150-200 Wi-Fi access points, many of them open, to which I can connect with no noticble interference problems, getting up to 1.5Mbs. CSMA/CA has solved the problem.

      At the very least I think we amateurs should have the same rights in terms of bandwidth and power that any of the private providers have. Perhaps we could do a better job.

  12. Destruction of Common Sense by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    "I think we'll start seeing more convergence between the various standards -- today I watch more "television" on my PDA than I do on my actual television screen. I probably watch more on my t809 Samsung cell phone than on my TV, too."

    I'm sure the eye doctor likes having you as a customer.

    "I see such a great waste in available bandwidth due to excessive (and in my mind unconstitutional) FCC regulation of frequencies. For me, data is data and I just want to get at it faster and in more areas. To think that we're still going to send data over the UHF and VHS frequencies 50,000 watts at a time in a "one size fits all" broadcast is unthinkable. Those same frequencies could be better used to let people get what they want, when they want, in the form they want, at the price they want. Imagine how much more bandwidth would be available if the frequencies were available for the NEXT wireless standards."

    *sigh* If only the world could afford to keep up with me.

    "Why is that?"

    Physics and economics.

    "I mind because I see the power of data -- a small packet of information that isn't important until it is used. To think that we have gigahertz of bandwidth being used to try to give everyone the same thing is beyond me, and part of the reason I hate the FCC and want to see it disbanded completely so that society has a chance to meet our own needs in the future -- one IP connection at at time."

    Save me, "invisible hand", save me!

    1. Re:Destruction of Common Sense by Ex-MislTech · · Score: 1

      Fiber Optics has been around for quite some time, after the DOT COM bust
      it became relatively cheap . And the majority of fiber in the ground
      is not even lit . It is known as dark fiber .

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_fiber

      What would be best is for the ppl to do an end around the greed matrix .

      Make a Internet Cooperative, some already exist now and are doing well .

      http://www.coop.net/ and http://www.ncic.net/

      As tax payers we paid $200 billion USD in taxes to the major telcos to deploy
      fiber to every major US city, we were defrauded, the details are here :

      http://www.newnetworks.com/ShortSCANDALSummary.htm

      If we want internet access like a regulated utility, but without the the government
      screwing it up, our best option is a Coop .

      A good example of this banking and insurance wise is USAA for military ppl .

      When power was deregulated in california it just ended up a giant mess .

      The FCC has been manipulated by companies like sprint that tried their best to
      keep the GSM cellular system used by the rest of the world out of the US
      so their proprietary version could maintain a monoply .

      This is common knowledge among those that worked in Telecom, and there
      are other examples of the corporations using strong arm tactics and
      lobbyists to get what is best for their bottom lines .

      When lobbyists and corporate greed mold the policy for our telecom
      system nationwide it will not be in the best interest of the ppl at large,
      just the largess of a corrupt few, like the piece of crap CEO from global crossing .

      http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2002/2/11 /184102.shtml

      http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2002/2/11 /161838.shtml

      http://www.newsmax.com/scripts/showinside.pl?a=200 2/2/12/92546

      Millions and billions of dollars just pissed away due to greed, corruption,
      and poor management of resources . The status quo is not getting it done right .

      Ex-MislTech

      --
      google "32 trillion offshore needs IRS attention"
  13. I know what is next.... by zappepcs · · Score: 1

    The big players will lobby hard to fsck net nuetrality, then we will have 15 connections comming into our homes, one for each provider, and they will ALL try to bundle all services so that you can't pick VoIP from one and ISP from another.... they all want 'all your base are belong to them' so choice will go down, price will go up, and the consumer will be even farther away from sane and value priced services....

    In the US, its been pointed out, we can't even get a decent phone... never mind decent services...

    --
    Support NYCountryLawyer RIAA vs People
  14. I'm all baffled by Quiet_Desperation · · Score: 2, Funny
    Wait... this isn't another iPod killer, is it?

    I'm so confused. :(

  15. 'Free' TV & Phone - Totally Cataclysmic by digitaldc · · Score: 1

    Free TV on the net at http://www.wwitv.com/ and free phone service at http://www.skype.com?

    --
    He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
  16. Duopoloy on the pipes... by PornMaster · · Score: 3, Informative

    We're headed to a duopoly on the pipes to the home, cable and ILEC. Of course, with FiOS, Verizon's figured out the way to block out alternate DSL providers... once the phone companies don't have to share IP access, and the cable companies don't (see NCTA v. Brand X), they'll have control of both pipes into the home.

    WiMax might have a place out in the burbs, but in New York, I can't see how it can possibly serve the populace without interfering with its competition.

    With QoS, Vonage is going to slowly go down the tubes, as Time Warner, Cablevision, Comcast, AT&T, et al provide themselves better IP service than their competitors. (We know what Ed Whitacre, AT&T CEO thinks about this... http://www.businessweek.com/@@n34h*IUQu7KtOwgA/mag azine/content/05_45/b3958092.htm

    Oh, well. Squeeze your buttcheeks together.

    --
    500GB of disk, 5TB of transfer, $5.95/mo
  17. my experience by yagu · · Score: 2, Funny

    Disclaimer: I was laid off after 21 years from this company... go figure

    Well, if my observations offer any insight (they probably don't)... the company from which I was laid off was hot and heavy in one of their most important endeavors at the time: converting their public facing web presence to C#/.Net technology. I certainly had many other suggestions for important work to be done.

    So, let that be one indicator of how prepared the telcos may or may not be for the shifting winds in the telecommunications industry.

  18. What's Next in Telecommunications? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    AT&T should buy Verizon and Comcast.

    That would be great.

  19. I predict... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ...a return to smoke signals. That's what I use.

  20. Old fogeys... by Forbman · · Score: 1

    How many "old farts" (i.e., 35+ yrs old) like me are perfectly happy having our TV service only at home, on one TV, our Internet service provided by another company (wireless DSL works great. At least my provider, OnlineNW, has a pretty much wide-open connection, unlike cable or telco DSL, which of course are not physically possible options for me anyways) or are still happy with, dare I say it, dial-up, and don't want/need today's uber-complicated, overburdened cell phones, because we just use it to make the occaisional telephone call, not peep at Slashdot through a straw or workout our thumbs, etc.?

    1. Re:Old fogeys... by VisiX · · Score: 1

      The answer to your question is most likely a large number. (I'm going to ignore the fact that your sentence structure made absolutely no sense and instead respond to the spirit of your post)

      I am not old, but I feel the same way. I just don't need the majority of this technology, yet. However, there are a lot of things that people in the world use that I don't need. For example: thong underwear, animal tranquilizers, SUVs, stilts, hangliders, artifical limbs, etc. Just because you don't need it doesn't mean they shouldn't make it, it just means you aren't part of the target demographic. Maybe you shouldn't assume your way is better just because it is better for you.

    2. Re:Old fogeys... by pandrijeczko · · Score: 4, Insightful
      If you're handing out memberships to an "old fogeys" club, you can count me in!

      I'm pretty happy with standard DVDs on my non-HDTV TV at home connected to a reasonable hifi amp with a nice pair of speakers (one for each ear, works at my knowledge level of mathematics)...

      I'm in the UK and just have terrestrial TV, when I watch it. I can't justify paying for a cable/satellite service that has adverts on it - I'd pay for no ads or have it free with ads, no compromise there...

      I have a Nokia 6310i mobile phone that's about 3 years old & just makes phone calls & stores numbers - no camera, colour screen but it fits into my equally old car kit fine...

      I have a 1MB DSL service because that's all I can get in my area. I'd like more but I'll live with this until there's an upgrade, it's no biggie...

      I think far too many people (particularly the younger generation) get dragged into this "new technology is cool" thing without thinking about it - they just fall for the hype, hand over their money and off they go for six months until the next model comes out.

      To be fair, I was probably the same 10-15 years ago but then there was less choice, less advertising and less constant change - now I figure something is worth buying only if most or all of its features are useful to me.

      Yes, I'm turning into a miserable old git who actively avoids brand names ("How come Gap don't pay me to wear that T-shirt with their logo on it?") but what the hell... we ALL become our fathers one day...

      --
      Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
    3. Re:Old fogeys... by pandrijeczko · · Score: 0, Offtopic
      SUVs

      Now *THERE'S* something with useless features no-one ever uses...

      I'd make SUV owners pay ten times the taxes on fuel if they continue to use the roads - let them have fuel at the same prices as us "road car" owners if they go cross-country wherever they go. (In which case, of course, the SUV's suspension would be shot to hell within a year, the owners would realise they'd made a big mistake buying one & can go back to being less selfish and buy a normal car.)

      SUV owners? Put them on their own desert island with their vehicles and spray them orange - hanging is too good for them...

      --
      Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
    4. Re:Old fogeys... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hush now. There's a soccer mom right here who is ready to run you and your negative views right over with her SUV.

    5. Re:Old fogeys... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Funny? Insightful would be more like it.

    6. Re:Old fogeys... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      My feeling is that I will buy new technology when it fills a gap that I feel needs to be filled. Right now I don't feel a need to buy a lot of the new stuff, even though I could afford it. I don't see anything that strikes me as being absolutely necessary.

      I still use the same 21" TV I bought back in 1994, for $50 from an old couple who posted an ad in a local paper. It still works great. I don't watch that much TV, so a new one is not urgent for me.

      I still use a rotary phone. Two, in fact (living room and bedroom).I have a touch-tone phone, but I just like rotary phones (that bell is LOUD). I have no desire to get a cellphone.

      I'm in my late 30's, and maybe I'm becoming a grumpy old miser, but this constant push to BUY BUY BUY just annoys me. If something breaks then I'll buy a new one, but my stuff still works fine (even my old radios from the 70's - stuff like that seemed to be built better then).

    7. Re:Old fogeys... by Forbman · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Why the hostility? I don't like SUVs, or jacked-up 4x4 pickup trucks, or things that imply some sense of "utility" but in practice have about zero.

      At least you don't live in Oregon, where "fairness" in road usage will soon be that, at least for cars, road taxes are calculated by miles driven on them, because there are "too many" Priuses and other more fuel-efficient cars on the roads, and revenues from fuel taxes in Oregon are "going down".

      Which is odd, really. Most of Oregon's road miles are in very rural areas, except for perhaps the I-5 corridor between Portland and Eugene (but you don't have to go very far off of I-5 to find dirt roads...). Even driving in Portland, there are still relatively few Priuses and other hybrids. Lots of cars, trucks, minivans and SUVs.

      What it really indicates is that most people in Oregon are pretty averse to taxes. Hell, I moved here rather than Washington so as to not pay god-damned sales tax. Given the choice, I'd much rather pay Oregon's personal income tax than Washington's sales tax, or both, like in California or many states in the midwest, like Wisconsin and Illinois.

      So what will happen is that the Legislature will increase the gas tax (which they should, because larger vehicles eat up the roads more than smaller vehicles at a slightly geometric rate, not linear) which should encourage less unnecessary driving of unnecessary large vehicles. That, or get rid of the flat-rate car registration fee, and go to vehicle weight or something. Yeah, I have a big pickup truck (which I would register then as a farm vehicle), a Honda Odyseey and a Saturn wagon, so I'm promoting something that would bite me in the ass a little bit, because it would be simpler to implement, not require me to install (and probably buy...) GPS systems in my cars, etc.

      While it's nice living in Oregon, state affairs in Oregon are pretty screwed up. At least in Illinois (and California), things were corrupt, but most stuff still got taken care of, even if you knew someone was getting rather rich at the state's expense. In Oregon? No, there is as much bureaucratic fighting amongst state offices as there is in the Legislature, and all the while, shit just stays broken and dysfunctional, and people argue and worry about red herrings to no end, and various tails do their damnest to wag the dog to pieces.

      One of the local sports talking heads was blathering on about the Columbia River and the dams on it on Saturday. "Drop the dams, save the salmon!" and essentially arguing that agriculture does nothing for the economies of Washington and Oregon (and Idaho), that the state should do nothing to protect ag. Hmm... running fishing tours brings how much into these states' economies per year? Sorry, saving sports fishing should be one of the lesser worries for this region, because it's not suddenly going to blossom into a billion-dollar chunk of the region's economies, ever.

    8. Re:Old fogeys... by pandrijeczko · · Score: 1
      Why the hostility? I don't like SUVs, or jacked-up 4x4 pickup trucks, or things that imply some sense of "utility" but in practice have about zero.

      Firstly, I'm in England where we have a road system that already grinds to a halt whenever we have a half-inch of snow or a car with a flat tire on the motorway 200 miles away - so any additional, needlessly oversized vehicles contribute to that. (I actually believe our goverment could do a lot by giving companies tax breaks to use rail freight more and to get haulage moved by road more at night to alleviate some of the daytime traffic problems).

      Secondly, SUVs are "selfish mobiles". They're generally designed to have bigger front and rear impact bars that inflict more damage to the other vehicle in an impact than to you in the SUV. This means that in an SUV you can afford to be over-confident and less considerate to other road users - which SUV drivers frequently are here. (Incidentally, the same is true for drivers of big/sports cars here also.)

      Thirdly, their size. Try getting into and out of your car in the average British car parking space where there is an SUV on each side. Personally, I'd create double-sized spaces for them and charge double the parking cost...

      I've got no problem with people using them when there is a need for them - like in rural areas. But for 99.9% of SUV drivers, it's about "show", nothing more.

      --
      Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
  21. This Revolution will not be televised. by mpapet · · Score: 1

    The "revolution" in telecom requires viable alternatives.

    Telco competitors have not yet recieved their special "volume bandwidth service package" fee schedule the telcos will be providing to telco alternatives.

    Ditto for every other thing mentioned.

    Let's concentrate on allowing innovation to surface in the States without being litigated/legislated to death first.

    --
    http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
  22. Telephony is Dead by hhawk · · Score: 1

    The Telephony business died some time in 1998 but with 30 to 50 year depreciation cycles it's going to be 20 or 30 years before the carry away the corpse.

    The back bone is mostly packets and the cost of transmission is very low.

    If you measured all the data in bits that you use for a phone call and priced them by the bit, bit for bit that you might pay for a high speed hollywood movie delivered down a digital pipe.. your yearly telephone bill should about a $1.

    They only place they are making money is on software features like call forwarding and call waiting..

    --
    http://www.hawknest.com/
  23. Uhhh... Right... by ergean · · Score: 1

    Yes... I can see this... evolution from voice to SMS, what is next? Is that a television in your future? Neehhh... just pictograms.

  24. Reliability by Thyrsus · · Score: 1

    My firewall appliance records cable internet outages almost daily. The only time in 19 years I've lost POTS was in the middle of a hurricane, and it came back in less than a day. On the other hand, the DSL speed available to me is close to a tenth what is available from the cable. From where I live, this convergence talk looks like unicorns trotting around the marketing department. (There was a Dilbert cartoon...)

    1. Re:Reliability by UttBuggly · · Score: 1

      I am using 2 providers that essentially offer the same "we can do it all" bundles; one for telephone and Internet (DSL) and the cable provider for HDTV and DVR.

      The cable service is pretty good in terms of quality...when it's working, although I did install a custom line amplifier to insure decent signal to every coax connection in the house. The problem, and the reason I don't use cable for my network is reliability. Their uptime is really good, but certainly not 100%.

      I really like my DSL service...it's just never down. I am provisioned at 3Mb down / 1.5Mb up and get every bit of that and typically burst higher. The cable provider offers 9 / 4 for about $10-15 more than what I pay for DSL (about $26 currently) but that's misleading as I got a wireless gateway/router for no cost from the DSL folks and that's "extra" from the cable folks. And, I've always had dial-up backup from the DSL host whereas the cable guys just added that in the last 6-12 months.

      Overall, I chose 99.9% over 95%.

      Oh, and I tried the "mega bundle" from the DSL folks for a year; didn't like it that much. I dropped everything but basic telephone and DSL and cut $100 a month from the bill. So far, I don't miss anything, so that seems to have been a good choice.

      --
      I am my own gestalt.
  25. A dream vision.... convergence. by drasfr · · Score: 1

    My vision is a convergence of phone/data/tv and all communications channels/ways to data services. Phone companies will not matter anymore. Data companies will.

    At the end, in a couple of years, or decade(s) all traditionnal phone lines will dissapear replaces with data-lines, high speed fibers directly to each home. 10G wireless networks will be capable of over 100mbps directly to any wireless devices. Secure IPv6 will be the norm so each device in the world can be uniquely identified.

    There will be phone adapters so people can receive their phone conversations. They will be able to have those calls follow them wherever they are, from a handset to be transfered to a headset, bluetooth (or whatever technology they will be wearing), to the car communication system, to the desktop, back to the handset - without a hitch to the communication.

    There will be video adapters so that people can start watching a show/movie from their either live tv or recorded, change room, take their pda or smart-phones, leave the room and continue watching the show, live. They will be able to take their portable entertainment center with them, keep on watching their shows in their cars on their ways to grandma. Arriving there, they will have access to their entire movie collection, photos, document, etc as if they were home. Where you are doesn't matter. You will have access to all your information. Even more futuristic but totally possible, all your data will be encrypted using your own DNA as the key so wherever you are access to your data IS guaranteed confidential.

    Actual phone companies if they want to survive will have transform themselves from phone companies to data/services companies, providing multiple services, data, voice, video, tv, radio, etc... to their customers.

    ah... I am a dreamer... but then... who knows? It may very well happen. The question is. When?

  26. Death To The Cellular Pirates! Hoorah! by pandrijeczko · · Score: 1
    It's become clear in recent years that bandwidth is a pretty cheap commodity & than most of us with fast DSL & broadband connections don't use anywhere near all of the bandwidth we have anyway - so sending more stuff down that bandwidth has to be a good thing for the consumer in terms of prices.

    Personally, I'm looking forward to the slow painful death of the mobile phone companies - a consortium of price-fixing, extortion-using pirates if ever there were any. The cost of mobile phone calls is *TRULY DISGUSTING*...

    I'm a techie in the telecoms industry myself, in the business convergence arena, and I'm looking forward to the rollout of SIP and greater spread of wireless - then it becomes feasible for ISPs to provide telephone connectivity & mobility, together with reasonable call charging so that we can wave "Bye Bye" to the likes of Vodaphone and O2 and Orange (in the UK at least).

    "Good riddance to bad rubbish" say I...

    --
    Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
    1. Re:Death To The Cellular Pirates! Hoorah! by TwilightSentry · · Score: 1

      so sending more stuff down that bandwidth has to be a good thing for the consumer in terms of prices

      Look what the telcos started doing when people used all of their (paid for) bandwith with programs like Bittorrent...

      --
      How to enable garbage collection on a system without protected memory: #define malloc() ((void *) rand())
  27. Hooray! by Greyfox · · Score: 3, Insightful
    We may finally get the videophone that was originally envisioned in the 50's. Of course, there're a lot of times when you don't want a video feed of the other party. That's probably why none of the current solutions have really seen widespread use. My company has a videoconferencing setup that seems to work pretty well for meetings, but I don't see it being common in the home anytime soon.

    It seems to me that the vision of the future we all have today is nowhere near as optimistic as the vision of the future they had in the '50's. They all thought that by this time everyone would have flying cars, video phones, personalized robots to eliminate boring chores, food pills that would provide the nutrition of an entire meal in one small pill and so forth.

    What's our equivalent of the flying car? It's not the flying car -- we've pretty much decided that that is an insurmountable engineering task for the foreseeable future. Virtual Reality? Doesn't seem to have the same style the flying car did and I don't expect VR to catch on anytime soon. Possibly not within my lifetime. A manned trip to Mars? I suppose it could be a manned trip to Mars.

    Don't get me wrong, we're still doing some neat stuff. We just don't seem to have our sights set as high as we did back then.

    --

    I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?

    1. Re:Hooray! by IvyKing · · Score: 1
      It seems to me that the vision of the future we all have today is nowhere near as optimistic as the vision of the future they had in the '50's.

      I've got a copy of the "Tomorrowland" DVD released by Disney a couple of years ago - mainly stuff about space made in the 1950's. Especially enjoyed the one about Mars - since I first saw it in 1962 or 63. What was a bit weird was seeing Ward Kimball as he looked in the 1950's as compared to what he was like in person in the 1990's (and he was still quite a character).

      One thing a lot of people forget is that the 1950's were a time of tremendous changes in day to day technology. In 1950, rockets just being sent to the lower reaches of space, A-bombs were to be delivered by long range bombers, electronics meant vacuum tubes, TV's were rare, computers were largely experimental, most trains were hauled by steam locomotives, airliners were piston powered, cars typically had flathead engines, 6V electrical systems and air-conditioning was only found on Cadillacs, and many cities still had streetcars. In 1960, satellites had been to the moon, H-bombs were to be delivered by ICBM's, electronics meant transistors, TV's were common (color TV's were rare but not unheard of), computers were comon for large businesses, the steam locomotive was essentially extinct, airliners were jets, flathead engines had disappeared (with the exception of the Continentals used in the Checkers), cars used 12V electrical systems, air-conditioning was a common option and streetcars were almost gone.

      We may finally get the videophone that was originally envisioned in the 50's.

      One of the things that kept it from happening earlier (that is ca 2000) was that most "broadband" connections had their upstream speeds capped to 128kbps - though many of the newer offerings have a much higher upstream speeds.

      Reading your post got me to thinking about a couple of memories from the 1970's. The first was reading Mac's Service Shop column in the April (?) 1972 issue of PopTronics where they were talking about the brand new HP-35 and knowing the world was going to be a different place. The next was seeing the first West Coast Computer Faire in 1977 - the equipment was pretty primitive by todays standards, but there was an optimism of what the future might bring that has been gone for at least the last decade if not the last two decades - a slightly faster intel box running a slightly improved version of windoze isn't much to look forward to.

    2. Re:Hooray! by Tweekster · · Score: 1

      As the creator of dilbert said, honestly, why would you want to look at those people, most likely they are ugly. That is why we will have Digital Representatives. Attractive looking characters to represent us.

      --
      The phrase "more better" is acceptable English. suck it grammar Nazis
  28. What I'd like to see by boatboy · · Score: 3, Funny

    What I'd really like to see next in telecommunications is the ability to call someone from anywhere, speak into a device, and have a person on the other end hear what I say, all the time, every time. Once they get that working, the other things will be nice too.

  29. Can't wait for television on stamps by TheSkepticalOptimist · · Score: 5, Funny

    Think of it, those boring little static images you get on your snail mail. What if they could show you the latest Madonna video, or episode of Lost? Think of how much money the music, television and movie industries could make if they could beam their content to stamps?

    I am surprised Apple isn't realizing the potential of showing videos and playing music on stamps. I mean, the iPod Nano is slightly bigger then a stamp.

    I am also surprised Google hasn't figured this out yet, all that wasted space on a letter that Google could put ad words and Google adds on. That stamp is just dying to display Google content.

    Also, think of the potential of not having to buy extra postage stamps when the Post office increases their delivery charges on a monthly basis. You could setup a stamp website that takes people's credit cards and automatically bills them for the increase in delivery charges and update the stamps face value, while the letter is CURRENTLY in transit! The post office could change their postage fees as easily as Gas companies change the price of oil!!!! No more returned mail for insufficient funds ... unless of course your credit card is maxed out from all the subscription service fees your paying to get tv, music, movies and video on a stamp.

    Why is this so laughable, I mean, they thought TV on cellphones would work, why not stamps?

    I don't know, I think the telecommunications industry has exhausted all their ideas for cell phones, I mean, TV on cellphones was so last week. The future is in Stamps I tell you, STAMPS!

    --
    I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
  30. Snacks over IP? comin' soon by smartmatterman · · Score: 1

    Cable now does POTS, and the telephone companies want to do TV. The new alphabet soup includes IPTV, VoIP, IPv6 over IPv4, with many many many more to come. Just wait and see the strange concoction brew. After all data is DATA and bits are bits, right?

    Perhaps a "Ham and Rye over IP with a pickle?

    Don't laugh. Nanotech matter printers are on the horizon. You just maybe getting' your P&J on whole wheat while watching "Mod Squad" over the same broadband wireless connection. .smm.

  31. telecom == fraud by irritating+environme · · Score: 1

    So said a wise man to me in the late 90s.

    Haven't seen much else, so I'm guessing more fraud.

    --


    Hey, I'm just your average shit and piss factory.
  32. Video Killed the Internet Star by Doc+Ruby · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Verizon and AT&T are sick of trying to compete with informed customers exposed to choices and chances to stick together in the conflict of their interests with vendors. Telephony was as interactive as they ever wanted to get - they always wanted to just shove content down their pipes to subscribed captive audiences. But cable TV arrived just when the telephony monopoly was weakest: the mid-1980s, when the monopoly finally was forced to at least compete in some markets, like long distance and mobile.

    But now they've returned, buying up regional Bells and mobile operators rather than compete with them. Telephony is a lot like a duopoly, at least in "primary service" (the corp that bills the customer and maintains the brand): AT&T and Verizon. Their real competition comes from cable TV, with its own infrastructure, brands and increasingly telephony, and a little from Internet - the parts they don't own, like the cablemodem ISPs. So their strategy is to fight their main competitor, which is clearly cable TV.

    They could have just made telephony better. Mobile phones so reliable they never permanently drop calls. Making the Internet so cheap that it "goes away" from customers minds, replaced by billable services. Integrating voice as merely a feature in every app that ties people together. Making ubiquitous "phones" the multimedia terminals of a complete telecom environment. But that meant taking a risk competing by improving the product, actually competing with cable TV in quality.

    Instead they just want to leverage their competitive advantages, especially regulatory, to kill the competition and inherit those customers. All this talk of "2-tier Internet" is just a way to use up all the extra bandwidth capacity on video, making it scarce and expensive rather than cheap. The "nonpremium tier" will force competitors to substandard performance, or to subsidize their own demise, just like telcos did to DSL competitors for the few years they taught telcos how to operate that business.

    All whether customers want more video or not. What we want is more P2P, more separated interests between networks, content and apps. More reliable, simpler features that connect us to each other. Instead we'll get a dazzling array of crappy features and content, all funneling a fat pipe from our wallets to the cartel controlling the network.

    --

    --
    make install -not war

  33. Next big thing: SIP-based mobile cellulars phones by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I think the next big wave may be the proliferation of SIP-based mobile cellulars phones. That is, in addition to listening to GSM cellulars bands, listen to wireless Internet for VoIP calls at the same time.

    I'm currently using the Tomahawk Desktop, for my VoIP communications. If you curious what is Tomahawk Desktop, it an Apple like multimedia Linux OS for desktops and laptops.

    So, now have to add one more functionality to mobiles phones in addition to 2.0M pixels digital camera, MP3 player, radio, Bluetooth, etc.

  34. Triple play and ADSL2+ by anticypher · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Triple play DSL installations are now the norm in both Europe and parts of Asia. They are mostly based on the G.992.5 ADSL2+ standard, the DSLAMs and CPE boxes have been available since 2002, with a big uptake seen about 2 years ago.

    Technically, there is 24 Mbps of downstream bandwidth available (with no voice band splitters, it can use the whole bandwidth of the copper pair). G.992 also allows for multiple ATM pipes, so a service provider can reserve 16kbps for VOIP, 1-3 Mbps for a single MPEG-4 video stream, and the rest for internet. There is also the concept of separate interleave delays for each ATM circuit, so a voice channel can have a low delay, video a high delay, and internet can have either a high delay with higer bandwidth or low delay with lower bandwidth (for the gamerz oh-so-important ping times). Even customers out at the far limits of DSL still have a few hundred Kbps of internet left after the VOIP and TV feeds.

    Video channel switching is done via a reserved communications channel between the set-top CPE box and the DSLAM, as you zap through the channels, the DSLAM chooses the video stream. The major downside is that there needs to be a fibre feed with all the channels going through every DSLAM, a couple of Gbit/sec worth of streaming video for the companies who have 300+ channels available. The video quality I've seen on every system is pretty poor, MPEG artifacts everywhere, skips and delays, and no synchro between audio and video streams.

    I've just returned from a working vacation in the U.S., and I was stunned at the primitiveness of the DSL infrastructure. The big 3 monopolies own the copper, Local Loop Unbundling (or naked DSL) is almost non-existant, download caps as bad as Australia, AUPs forbid all kinds of things like leaving an SSH server on your home machine for remote access. I'm glad to be back in the first world, internet-wise.

    At CeBIT last week, everyone was talking VDSL2. European providers with large ADSL2+ networks are upgrading to 50Mbps VDSL2. All the chinese manufacturers were showing off working VDSL2 systems based on conexant and broadcom chipsets.

    the AC

    --
    Hemos is like...sci-fi fans;he thinks technology is cool, but he hasn't bothered to understand the science it's based on
  35. Re:Competing? Don't you mean... by incubus13 · · Score: 1

    Don't you mean: "Television, the new phone-killer APP" ? :)

    --
    if I could change the world, it would have a reset button