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ISP To FCC: Using The Internet Is Like Eating Oreos (consumerist.com)
New submitter Rick Schumann shares with us a report highlighting an analogy presented by an ISP that relates Double Stuf Oreos to the internet. Specifically, that Double Stuf Oreos cost more than regular Oreos, and therefore you should pay more for internet: The Consumerist reports: "Ars Technica first spotted the crumbly filing, from small (and much-loathed) provider Mediacom. Mediacom's comment is in response to the same proceeding that Netflix commented on earlier this month. However, while Netflix actually addressed data and the ways in which their customers use it, Mediacom went for the more metaphor-driven approach. The letter literally starts out under the header, 'You Have to Pay Extra For Double-Stuffed,' and posits that you, the consumer, are out for a walk with $2 in your pocket when you suddenly develop a ferocious craving for Oreo cookies." Of course their analogy is highly questionable, since transmitting data over a network doesn't actually consume anything, now does it? You eat the cookie, the cookie is gone, but you transmit data over a network, the network is still there and can transmit data endlessly. Mediacom's assertion that the Internet is like a cookie you eat, is like saying copying a file on your computer somehow diminishes or degrades the original file, which of course is ridiculous.
Because only other alternative is 1.5mbps DSL. That's what Mediacom preys on: cities that have 0 choice.
Moreover, they are fighting heavily for things to stay that way
Mediacom readies lawsuit against Iowa City
http://www.press-citizen.com/s...
In addition to bandwidth is free you forgot the one about how since the hardware infrastructure for networks is a sunken cost it should be free to use. I haven't figured that one out yet; apparently the underlying assumption is that the investors who paid up front ought to be robbed of their expected returns.
In a large percentage of cases, those up front investments were paid for by the FCC. And yes, those investors ARE getting robbed blind.
I wish I had a good sig, but all the good ones are copyrighted
I stopped eating them when I realized that the delicious white filling was whipped lard and sugar.
Not anymore: "In the early 1990s, health concerns prompted Nabisco to replace the lard in the filling with partially hydrogenated vegetable oil."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oreo
(Which means they're probably not as tasty as you remember them. Lard is delicious!)
Funny then how at the first hint of Google moving in, my ISP managed to triple the cap without upgrading the last mile or raising the price. Either the laws of physics changed or...