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How AT&T and Verizon Rip Off DSL Customers (arstechnica.com)
A new white paper written by the National Digital Inclusion Alliance finds that AT&T and Verizon are selling slow DSL internet to tens of millions of customers for the same price as fiber customers. These customers have no choice but to pay the rate AT&T and Verizon give them because no other service is offered in their area. Ars Technica reports: AT&T has been charging $60 a month to DSL customers for service between 6 and 10Mbps downstream and 0.6Mbps to 1Mbps upstream, the white paper notes, citing AT&T's advertised prices from July 2018. AT&T also charges $60 a month for 50Mbps and 75Mbps download tiers and even for fiber service with symmetrical upload and download speeds of 100Mbps. These are the regular rates after first-year discounts end, before any extra fees and taxes. Verizon similarly charges $65 a month for 100Mbps fiber service (including a $10 router charge), and $63 or $64 a month for DSL service that provides download speeds between 1.5Mbps and 15Mbps, the white paper says. The price is this high partly "because Verizon ADSL service at any speed requires paying separately for a landline telephone account." [...] The NDIA calls the practice of charging identical prices for wildly different speeds "tier flattening." It affects both urban and rural customers who live in areas where AT&T and Verizon haven't upgraded networks because they face no competition, because the upgrades wouldn't result in higher profits, or both. These customers end up using "the oldest, slowest legacy infrastructure," while paying much higher per-megabit prices than other Internet users.
Ah yes, Steam power was also evil for some....
...a country with less people than an average US city spread over quite large land area, three different providers are competing who gets to offer gigabit fiber for your street / condo - because whoever gets to build the fiber "last mile" for your area gets money from all those customers going forward as it is unlikely multiple providers build it for same building and "wholesale" prices - using one provider's physical fiber to use another provider's ISP services is not really price competitive at the moment, tho there are regulatory talk about making this happen, so say Telia builds fiber to a condo, Elisa or DNA could still offer ISP services to everyone in that condo while paying "wholesale" cost of operating the underying fiber to Telia.
DSL is something you use only if you live in a sad place where fiber hasn't quite gotten to yet (getting rarer every year). Copper wiring is actively being dismantled and replaced by fiber in most places and by LTE in really remote places (think individual houses or small groups of houses built miles from anything else and any summer cottages in the forest)
Actual "trunk" fiber networks are effectively triple-built - Elisa, Telia and DNA all have their own fiber networks across the country and they are busy covering even suburb houses, street by street. Sure, the initial build-out to an individual house costs a bit (gotta have that backhoe to set the fiber from the street to the building) but it is an one-time fee and probably improves the value of the property at least as much as it costs.
I'm paying 39e/ month for 1000Mbit down, 100Mbit up.
Competition is good.
So, lul DSL for $60.
Longest book ever written.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
AT&T is doing this across even the country's largest cities, even in densely populated majority Democratic voting areas. The very premise of the story you're telling yourself to feel better is entirely false.
Yep. Some people seem to think they can have EVERYTHING.
Nope.
No sig today...
If these providers were really treating me so incredibly unfairly, why wouldnâ(TM)t another option naturally emerge? Hasnt that always been the cycle of technology? Someone does something poorly and then someone else can do it better and make lots of money. This article is really about pricing of broadband service to rural areas. Being from a rural area, I can difinitively state that we are happy to have something- please donâ(TM)t take that away by getting government involved and depriving providers of an incentive to deliver services to agricultural towns with low population densities. While I appreciate these authorsâ(TM) concern for fly over country, it is misguided.
Why have 1 person driving a backhoe when you could employ 20 with shovels?
I've had field techs running new wiring for faster internet in these "densely populated majority Democratic voting areas" you refer to.. two things I remember them reporting seeing and hearing... seeing: lots of thugs near the apartment buildings they had to work at/near. hearing: bullets whizzing by.
If the world is round how come satellite signals are always available? Shouldn't they go in and out of visibility if the world was round? My satellite TV always works as does my so called GPS. Explain that!
Wake up you sheep.
We know the planet is round because FSM created it in the shape of a holy meatball, all hail his noodly appendage.
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No you haven't. Liar.
Why wouldn't they rip you off when they have zero competition and no incentive to make the service better. They're even trying to ramp it up with getting rid of net neutrality but don't worry the free market will solve it, right?
Wanna buy a shirt?
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And so-called "governments" ... which are actually corporate oligarchy traitors in "for the people" skin ... are criminals too, if they allow it.
That's the one thing every libertarian needs to remember: When corporations talk about "freedom", they talk about their freedom to take away the freedom of the market, turn it into a monopoly, and take away your freedom with it. And if they don't, they'll be driven off the market by the corporation that does. ... we just usually expect it to also mean the freedom from the harm of others.
We all love freedom; yes, communist socialists too
(Fun bonus fact: If you truly understand all those -isms, their natural ideal end state is actually the same! So in a perfect world, libertarians, capitalists, democrats, socialists, communists, etc, could all happily live together with zero compromises. They just try to get there via different utterly unrealistic ways that completely fail to understand human nature. And that's where they are ridiculed. ;)
The issue is bandwidth is dirt cheap. Go sign up for any VPN provider where you end up paying $3-5 a month for unlimited transfers. That tells you EXACTLY how much the bandwidth actually costs. Everything else in the cost of a service like cable/dsl. is the cost of doing business and the cost of maintaining the last mile(s) infrastructure.
I currently have an account with private internet access and tunnel all of my home connection though it. I paid for two years up front and my 100% unlimited transfers though the VPN cost me a whopping $3 a month. I regularly transfer 200-300GB a month though this VPN session per the stats on my router.
Bandwidth costs nearly nothing, its paying for the infrastructure on the poles, the techs, CSRs and all the other overhead of business and of course profit that makes your internet connection cost what it does.
If PIA can sell unlimited data through the VPN for $3 a month, pay their hosting, bandwidth, support costs and I am assuming they still make a profit, then you really know the actual data costs next to nothing
Yeah, and what will happen, when that one company *does* own your last mile? Guess what...
Yeah... have fun with your very individualized monopolies!
There are only two groups that should own the last mile:
You...
Or your city.
In Germany, we had the problem, that the last mile was owned by the ex-state Telekom, which got "privatized" (which is another word for what Mussolini originally coined as "fascism"). So to avoid a monopoly, they forced the Telekom to pass competitors' data through at the net cost price. Actually, the EU did, and even punished Germany, when the government failed to comply properly due to the Telekom still being in their old boys' club.
This drove down prices massively!
Nowadays, we see a growing number of companies laying their own fiber to the home. Yes, right next to the Telekom one. They even use the same construction crew and hole, from what I have seen. This is because the net needs to be modernized every x years anyway. Especially if there was no fiber there at all. So somebody would have to dig and put new wires there anyway. And the companies bet on that them being the first ones will also give them advantages. (Which, it my city, it did. They had fiber, many years before the Telekom, and are known for their high-quality network.)
I don't know if they have to offer their fiber to the Telekom too, if they are the only ones there. It might well be.
We still have a sad state in rural areas though. As other companies don't dare to built there. In this aspect, they could learn a bit from you northern countries.
... I pay $70 for 1Gbps symmetrical. It is really staggering how countries like the US or Germany are unable to get reasonably fast Internet to everybody at a reasonable price. Apparently, everybody there is so convinced they are firmly in the leadership position, that they will not wake up until it is far too late to salvage anything of their former position.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
The backhaul bandwidth is only a tiny fraction of the cost to provide service, most of the cost is providing and maintaining the physical line so it doesn't cost significantly less for an ISP to provide a 2mb DSL service than it does to provide fibre assuming the infrastructure is already in place.
If anything, providing DSL might cost more because the infrastructure is older and more likely to suffer problems.
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Please do tell me about all the numerous locations you're deploying broadband capable of greater than 1 megabit upload speed or 18 megabit download. Please also note any new fiber deployments whatsoever.
This one should be easy: anywhere in the US, in any of the 20 largest cities, point out a single new residential fiber deployment.
Most of the good content (i.e. useful for a career) is written, not in video format. DSL is more than adequate for text, even for poorly compressed text such as scanned material.
Switched to the high speed internet from DSL. Guess what, hardly affected day to day usage. The web wasn't much faster, pages took about the same time to load, only updating certain bloatware became noticeably faster.
The speed boost was nice to have, but in the end, the law of diminishing returns fits. For similar reasons, I don't see a big need for 4k video either.
How about we talk about why Comcast charges about $25/mo difference between 25Mb/s and 1000Mb/s?
It's only $5 between 400 and 1000.
I suppose the answer is that infrastructure makes up 90% of the cost, and it's the same regardless of what you buy.
I'd imagine maintaining copper lines for DSL isn't cheap, maybe that's why DSL is so pricy?
two words: "Geostationary orbit"
https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/b...
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
Around here it's been going on pretty much since the influx of new users made the Slashdot Effect into a thing and provided the free publicity to make the site even more mainstream (e.g. the advent of the GNAA, Goatse, etc. trolls), although it's definitely ramped up significantly of late (and also over on Soylent, for that matter). The "official" date is September 1993 though, and that was definitely a turning point for the Internet as a whole and made the '92 newbies look positively refined; at least most of them took the time to learn the rules of the road. Good times...
What amazes me is that, apparently, some of them are presumably so sad as to not only have nothing better to do, but are are also deciding to do this over less than 1Mb/s upstreams that they are paying $60/mo for. I guess it you can't realistically play Fortnite/PUBG or get decent framerates on your porn then you've got to get your online jollies from somewhere.
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
It is time to nationalize the telephone and ISP sector. Leave cable alone. Let it die.
Supply everyone who wants it min 50 down 10 up DSL for $25 a month, no hidden fees. Where available, offer better service at higher price. For rural customers install microwave to the roof as needed.
We have paid over and over for telco infrastructure only to be constantly left to rot in the slow cold by the telcos. Forget it. Done. No buy out, no more tax breaks. You simply loose your monopoly. Of course AT&T and the ilk can still compete with the government if they so choose... they can innovate, advertise and promise to their heart's delight... but I want reliable cheap Internet.
It is a utility, nothing more. Done.
Many commodities are more expensive the more remote you get. Gas and food for one.
The cost to provide the lines are the same, if not more... rural techs/trucks/offices have costs and they don't magically get cheaper the more remote you are.
How this is news is beyond me.
While I agree, the influx of unspeakably clueless morons into /. has been going on for a while. Not the only place where this is happening.
It's preparation for the next presidential election and voting fraud. They are counting on the "I can't believe we reelected that putz! We need a recount. Well actually, looking at the Internet, it's clear that the majority of people are gibbering idiots, so don't bother with the recount." effect.
If people believe everybody but themselves is a complete and utter moron, they'll believe Trump got reelected. If everybody on the Internet acts composed, rational and decent, voting machines would get a lot more scrutiny and unbelief.
Its the old city mouse vs country mouse conflict. Denser populations are more efficient for distribution both of physical goods and utility services. Naturally rural customers think this is unfair.
When it comes to Verizon it there way or the highway. The highway is GREAT :)
Those two words should have been "educate yourself". Obviously that guy doesn't follow informative links.
Doesn't really matter what company is in your area. We are offered 10Mbps DSL in our neighborhood, but when you contact them about it you are informed that you will only get 4Mbps at max due to proximity to a substation, oh and by the way it will still be $50/month but we are so gracious to you that your prices won't change for 24 months. That is their selling point. "We won't raise prices on you."
? You needed a white paper to find this out?
I work at ATT. I don't have anything to do with pricing on Uverse nor am I even a field tech who has ever even been inside a crossbox nor am I in C and E but, no shit they are. Have you even seen their plans?
The medium at which service is delivered dictates the speed at which bits can be delivered. Telcos have to cover their infrastructure and support costs. I'm in no way defending Telcos. I was an ISP for 10 years. There is WAY more than what this talks about to be considered. Ultimately, customer's have a choice and it's up to the customer to choose their service type. Fiber or DSL may not even be choices, but the infrastructure costs remain pretty constant for each. Telcos make huge investments in infrastructure which may never pay off. It's the last mile/ft costs and service which you pay for not ultimately the speed. Speed is marketing...
don't tell the truth. Even worse they don't tell the sales personal that they are doing the lying.
Here's a list of the different 'tiers of speed' from AT&T's own website.
https://www.att.net/speedtiers
The have the plan names under IPBB (UVerse) and Fiber. For instance
Internet 50 is 30-50 Mbps upstream and downstream for Fiber, but only 6-10 upstream for their IPBB (UVerse).
My area was recently upgraded with Fiber. I know because I talked to techs and they had been around for an entire week for that upgrade. AT&T's own website had been advocating people to sign up for Fiber also.
So called them up and the rep on the phone insisted that IPBB (Uverse) is Fiber, but when asked about the speed discrepancies, they couldn't answer, or was trained not to give a straight answer. This is even after I've given them the direct URL to THEIR OWN WEBSITE. I would have gladly payed a bit more for better up speed, but they just didn't give a fuck. Mind you, this was a sales department. Well done.
They then tried to sell me the highest tier "Internet 100", but they couldn't guarantee that I would get comparable up-speed close to down speed.
Of course it's a joke. The fuck is wrong with you? /. Is an island of sanity? Ok, that's what's wrong with you.
"Old man yells at systemd"
I have DSL and yes, it's about $60 once you add in regular phone service, all the fees and taxes and caller ID. I've looked into switching to fiber many times and always, it's difficult to get it for under $100 a month once the teaser rate expires. Currently, Verizon offers fiber internet with no phone for $40 a month plus $10 for a modem, plus unspecified fees and taxes, so let's say $60, but that's only for 1 year, after which they won't tell you what it costs even in the fine print!
So? Why do you assume that Internet access prices should be somehow related to rate? There are plenty of good reasons why Internet access through DSL might actually be more expensive than fiber access.
It appears there is a big push by the luminati to get broadband all across america to be modern and fast to govern from the mid point of america by fiat and broadband. This has nothing to do with fairness and everything to do with , all americans need to be on super fast broadband to worship luminati luminatis.
The fuck is this?
Of course it's a joke. The fuck is wrong with you? /. Is an island of sanity? Ok, that's what's wrong with you.
Poe's Law is alive and well. Yes, the GP seems to be a joke, but I have seen stupider things said in all seriousness.
I don't know how anyone can call DSL anything but pathetic these days. Its basically comparable to dial of a decade ago. Actually there are improvements in technology that could make DSL a bit better and double speed. But I don't think too many have bought into this technology as yet in the US. Frontier who provides service in my area at only charges only $35 for DSL monthly. The Wireless ISP's also over charge for similar DSL like speed to customers.
If the world is round how come satellite signals are always available? Shouldn't they go in and out of visibility if the world was round? My satellite TV always works as does my so called GPS. Explain that!
Wake up you sheep.
We know the planet is round because FSM created it in the shape of a holy meatball, all hail his noodly appendage.
Exactly, you've never seen a perfectly round meatball, which is why his divine pastaness made the earth an oblate spheroid.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
I have AT&T DSL, but no phone service. It took some work, but it's called "standalone" or "naked DSL". However, I also have a "business class" line, and five static IPs, that I pay $95 a month for. It's a rip-off; but at my apartment "someone" long ago went into the coax junction boxes and cut the cables off at the top of the pipe. It's rumored this happened at the same time AT&T was given an exclusive contract to this complex many years ago. They no longer have that here, but the apartment complex won't pay to replace all the lines.
So, old technology is expensive to buy. Are they suggesting AT&T and Verizon stop offering DSL in areas where there is no fiber so that those customers would have to go back to analog dialup? I bet the customers would prefer paying $50 for their ADSL line over paying $19.95 for the analog 28.8/56k dialup service.
It's just silly.
I pay nearly $50/mo for 1.5mbps DSL. It is the one and only real option available to me. There a sole satellite option, for a faster speed but they cost more and have a data cap of 50 GB that our house would hit quickly since we are a cord cutting household and stream all of out media
The main benefit of fibre over DSL is that you can provide vastly more data throughput with for the same cost or less compared to DSL, because a DSL network is inherently more expensive to operate. So OF COURSE it doesn't cost more even though it's ten times more throughput. Complaining that DSL should cost less than fibre because fibre is faster is like complaining that bread made from desiccated caviar should cost less than bread made from flour because desiccated caviar bread isn't good bread. That may be true, and one would intuitively expect the worse option to cost less, but the ingredients alone for the worse option still cost more than the better option in its entirety.
The problem isn't that DSL customers are being overcharged compared to fibre, but that fibre isn't available for many people.
Watch a few YouTube videos. Take you favorite conspiracy theory as the topic. Then come again and tell me that it should be taken as granted that anything that's completely insane can only be meant as a joke.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I believe they call it "post-modern America" where idiocy replaces common sense and education is provided in 3 minute segments by Alex Jones.
let's face it, most corporation rip off their customers, between monopoly and usery there's no integrity in big business. We the people have become wage slaves living in a company town. Sold down the river by the overly affluent. Just sayin ...
If the world is round how come satellite signals are always available? Shouldn't they go in and out of visibility if the world was round? My satellite TV always works as does my so called GPS. Explain that!
Wake up you sheep.
We know the planet is round because FSM created it in the shape of a holy meatball, all hail his noodly appendage.
Exactly, you've never seen a perfectly round meatball, which is why his divine pastaness made the earth an oblate spheroid.
There exists the holiest of holy meatballs whos bumps and ridges match exactly that of the earth. When this is found surely it will usher in a new age of tomato based sauces for our glorious meatballs.
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Verizon has stopped their fios rollout nationwide. AT&T only expands fiber in affluent areas. Both are reneging on their broadband agreements to focus on their 5g deployments,
What a bunch of slaves.
We're actually post-post-modern now. I think just calling it post-truth will suffice, as facts (relative or otherwise) are no longer important to a large number of people.
Trigglypuff is my Word of the Day awardwinner!
Steam is awesome, they always have games on sale!
#DeleteFacebook
I am not sure that is an accurate statement, most of the Republican areas are rural (by USA landmass) and served by DSL. Think farmers and small town American. States like North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming, Montana, Kansas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Kentucky, Tennessee, etc....
Trump tried to help rural Republicans with broadband, but only has so much power:
https://motherboard.vice.com/e...
Population overdensity is just stupid on all levels. Fiber is our way out of this mess by de-centralizing a lot of our employment. It's cheaper for everyone. Digging in the dirt is cheaper than pounding concrete to upgrade lines.
So i am in Detroit, and i refuse to use Comcast. AT&T charges 65 a month for DSL and has no fiber in my area -- I live very close to U of D so its wierd that there is no fiber blocks from a university. I am moving soon so I get to be a normal internet user again really soon ;-)
Everyone in Canada pays $60 for 10Mbps.
:)
...but seriously, this isn't far from the truth.
Even with.... "competition"
This is a major factor in choosing a new place to live, so is there a way to either check the reported speeds of potential places online or a tool I could use when checking out the place before I moved in? Contact the ISP for the place and arrange to have internet access for the day I'm checking the place out? That sounds like a non-starter with the ISPs I've dealt with in the past. I guess I could make the availability of adequate internet access a part of the lease. The answer is probably going to be to find someone in the apartment with a preexisting connection and ask if I could check it.
Where can I find out more information online?
I pay $40/month for 25/2 from AT&T (DSL), cancel at the end of the 1-year agreement, then $30/month (after fees) for 25/5 from Comcast (Cable) for a year and cycle back and forth between the two each year. They both suck but there are zero competitors in Northern Illinois. The only actual hope for a competitor will be 5G from a cellular data provider, assuming they charge a reasonable fee (LOL.)
-==- Buy a Mac and leave me alone!
Reading your post history again, I see?
There is a cable provider and there is a dsl provider. No fiber is available. There are 5G wireless providers starting to penetrate the area, but where I am there is as yet no line of sight. LTE wireless is spotty right where I am. I've been paying as much for a slow DSL line as backup to the cable for my business needs and I need it so rarely that I'm ready to finally pull it. My need for backup for those rare times is finally lower, and LTE coverage is at least sufficient to meet that occasional need. HOWEVER: Until recently I would definitely have considered my area one of those where Fiber was deliberately delayed due to lack of competition.
My state did try to force Verizon to put fiber to every home. They said they won't permit any fiber with a commitment to doing the whole state in a certain time frame. Verizon promptly sold their telephony business in my state to a smaller provider and left. Now we have crappy land line service and still no fiber.
The problem with quotes on the internet, is that nobody bothers to check their veracity. -- Abraham Lincoln
For similar reasons, I don't see a big need for 4k video either.
The biggest draw of UHD (e.g. 4K video) is dynamic range, not resolution. The difference between HDR and non-HDR video and images on an HDR display is noticeable from any reasonable distance, on any size display.
Your limited use case for internet blinds you to the realities of that market, as well.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
The reason they are comparable is because the value of the line is fixed. The bulk of the cost is in the sales/support/line maintenance and generally speaking it's a lot cheaper to maintain a brand new fiber network than an aging copper one. It's a rip off in that it's too much for internet overall but not if you're comparing them to each other.
Where do you live? I've been saying for decades that this should be the case everywhere. Separate the companies that provide last-mile wiring from the companies that provide services over those wires, and it will end up being the only regulation the entire industry would ever need. By the way, greetings from one four-digit user to another :)
Tired of FB/Google censorship? Visit UNCENSORED!
I would usually just assume sarcasm here, but with all the flat-Earth morons you see out there I will provide the explanation. Geosynchronous satellites are the answer, which are satellites that are at the proper distance from Earth such that the duration of their orbit is the same as the duration of a day. So they are always over the same location.
That is capitalism, stop complaining about your own comfort and complain about capitalism if you have a problem.
Laying infrastructure is not free or even cheap. Here are other everyday things you pay more for because you live outside of a large metro:
-gas
-groceries (milk, eggs, everything)
-hardware supplies
If you are so outraged at the DSL pricing scheme the list of non-everyday things will make you faint.
I was in the same boat for a long time. Finally was able to switch to comcast for loads more bandwidth at less cost. Wish I was able to do it a long time ago.
This is indistinguishable from believing that socialism works to the benefit of the worker class.
ps -- Alex Jones is entertaining for short periods of time, just like CNN, for the same reasons, though the content varies.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
availability of adequate internet access a part of the lease
Lease. There's a part of your problem. It's going to be difficult to get a broadband provider to make investments to capture customers with a high turn over rate.
But it's not a bad idea. In my neighborhood, we were facing a refusal by Verizon to run DSL. And they would screw with any CLECs trying to lease lines. Reason: They had a 'no compete' agreement with Comcast. Verizon didn't offer broadband and Comcast (although they offered in in a three-way package) would not provide phone service. And throttle VoIP providers they caught on their system.
The solution was to have a word with some real estate agents. Lack of decent broadband could result in property being devalued in the neighborhood. Particularly to home buyers living within spitting distance of Microsoft. Within a couple of years, Verizon changed policy and installed fiber in the area.
You just need to find a better connected set of crooks than the telecoms to fight for your side.
Have gnu, will travel.
"Republitards don't have to live in the boonies. I"
Wow. Just wow.
Let's see if Band 71 solves any of this.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
In BC, Telus Communications does this. I currently pay $150 per month for dsl and basic phone.
if i wanted fiber, I can get the bundle for $65 per month (phone, internet, and tv promo price) I said no!
Why pay more for phone and internet? Only one reason. When the power goes out, and it does, your fiber phone and internet are dead in 6-8 hours. Yes, that is the expected battery duration for a fiber rig on battery power. So eight hours later, my phone is dead!
I'll stick with copper until the end... Why? My phone still works!
Even after a three day power outage!
oh, and if I turn on the generator, I could theorectically have internet. But let's face it, my generator is more for the furnace if you know what i mean.
Yes, I know you can buy extra batteries for your fiber rig. But why be at the mercy of a battery in the first place.
expensive Telus rip off? you bet it is!
Paying $60/month for AT&T's 5mbps dsl. It's total garbage but I don't have any other options.
I get 50-M / 12-M in JAX for $40/mo no lease/contract .... stable service from an "adult" provider. Yeah yeah they are CIA-pimping bastards ...
I updated some laptop today, looked at cleaning up/tidying up. I used a CAT5 cable because that was easier. It was amazing to download 170MB crapware in seconds!
But Windows Update still is slow as fuck (installing 45792 .NET updates on HDD). And I had the "pleasure" of updating from Windows 8.0 to Windows 8.1. After leaving it alone for hours and you come back, there's the screen that want to "help" you then guilt you into sending your browser history to microsoft. Then you go for another two hours of grinding and Windows Update. I'll ask for some money, and I still think of wiping it with linux in like 10 minutes as a sacrifice of wasted time to the computer gods.
It will prolly take decades for HDR pictures to replace .jpeg and .gif on our web pages.
Plenty of us here know about Betteridge's Law and Godwin's Law, but not as many recall Poe's Law, which most certainly applies to this situation.
You lie. It may not be intentional but you are. My local power company just got sued again by Charter/Spectrum for rolling out fiber outside the city limits. Our area has EXCLUSIVE service provided by Spectrum by contract for anyone outside a municipality. AT&T has 12MB DSL in the phoneline arena. Your other choices are cellphone wireless or satellite.
The problem you are exhibiting is that you think the way your state does stuff is the ONLY way states do stuff. Simply not true. Speak for your state. TN is a sold out shithole due to Marsha Blackburn and Diane Black. Comcast owns the majority of the state and the holes are filled with Spectrum. Those bitches made it that way. Diane Black even bought a riverside mansion afterwards to gloat about it.
HDR is not an image format, it refers to an image or video with an enhances color space and I was speaking specifically of video, as that is what the AC I was replying to had mentioned. Again, lack of education abounds.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
It makes sense that copper is generally less economic than fiber: copper is less durable than fiber. And, requires more repeaters.
I have had DSL in a few client locations and it is far more problematic than fiber, or cable.
Plus, Verizon, at least, intends to close their copper plants in the relatively near future.
Copper has become too expensive to maintain.
Self-importance and self-indulgence is the root of ALL evil.
That's Belgium, but i'm sure other EU countries have the same model.
On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.
A few years back I dated a woman who lived well within the city limits of a major U.S. city but could only get sub-par DSL or cable internet. I lived about 10 blocks south and had AT&T's UVERSE available at speeds of 15mbps and up to 30 if I remember correctly. I contacted AT&T asking if and when her house might be able to get UVERSE, seeing how it was in the urban core, but always hit the run around answer of "someday". When the telcos have little to no competition, as is the case here, they're more than happy to have you sucking down minimal bandwidth for maximum prices.