Here is one article written about it (by someone who believes in AGW) http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/02/leaked-docs-from-heartland-institute-cause-a-stir-but-is-one-a-fake/253165/
If the guy has Verizon FiOS, and is using the ActionTec router that was installed as part of the service, he does not own it. Verizon does NOT sell the router to the customer. (Buying the router is never an option.) Verizon supplies the router to support TV & Internet services over FiOS, and Verizon will repair or replace the router at any time that there is a problem with it without charging the customer. (With the exception of incidents of vandalism, or a pattern of abuse requiring multiple swaps of the router over time.) [I currently work for Verizon, and install FiOS every day. (Yes, the majority of the STUPID configuration decisions are forced on us by management to save time & effort from dealing with the average tech knowledge of both customers and other technicians with little or no knowledge about networks or security.)]
Actually, Verizon is even now leasing some of it's fiber lines to competing companies. (At least they are in PA) Granted, they are doing this more to prevent anyone from claiming that Verizon is creating a new monopoly, than from any intention of being nice. And no, they aren't raping the competing company. Verizon really is charging them Verizon's cost to provide the phone service. The "reasonable Rates" that Verizon is required to sell service to smaller competitors are nothing more than a forced subsidy, paid for by Verizon. Verizon is perfectly willing to have other companies offering service to people in areas that VZ serves, they're just not happy with having to pay for that company to do it.
Because Verizon is getting OUT of the copper network business. (Have you looked at the price os copper lately?) Oh, and those "Reasonable Rates" that the smaller companies insist are necessary if they are going to provide competition? Those are actually LOWER than what it costs Verizon to provide the service to them. Damn straight the rates go up when they lease service over fiber, now they are getting the service at cost. (No profit for Verizon, but not a loss anymore, either.)
Before I get into this, I'll point out a couple of points:
I work for Verizon as a Service Tech (and was originally hired as a Fiber Splicer)
I am working almost every day doing fiber installs at people's homes.
Have you ever wondered why Verizon charges so much for their POTS, when you can go to a competing company, pay a lot less, and still have your phone service arrive over Verizon equipment? It's a side effect of the Ma Bell breakup. Verizon is required to sell phone service to their competitors at a rate which is quite a bit lower than it costs them to provide it. Who picks up the extra costs? All of the normal Verizon customers.
Since Verizon is building this new Fiber network from scratch, they're not required to sell phone service at a loss to their competitors. As a matter of fact, they're not required to sell it to them at all. But they are anyway. The competing companies just have to buy it at cost now.
The copper network is OLD , and it costs a lot of money to keep it running. Fiber (unlike copper) doesn't care if it gets wet, it doesn't degrade over time nearly as quickly as copper does, troubleshooting, and repairing fiber is faster, cheaper, and easier than it is for copper.
When Verizon says that they are setting aside some of their bandwidth for video, they aren't talking about backbone bandwidth for internet. They are referring to some of the capacity built into the fiber network itself.
Every customer I've dealt with has loved the increased speed that they are getting with the fiber, but I love something that they might never even realize. The fiber network is much more reliable. Verizon's phone customers will have much fewer phone outages. (And some of the minor annoyances that people see now with the old copper connections. Hums, static, etc... If they do hear it, it's within the house.)
Oh, and if you have the 15 Mb/s service, and order a movie on demand, you shouldn't see any adverse effect on your internet connection. Since from the time that movie starts, until it ends, your connection will be going as fast as the equipment will support. (30 Mb/s minimum. Which, I'm sure, some people will have some interesting ideas for how to utilize that temporarily bigger pipe.)
Hopefully, this will clear up some misunderstandings coming from this story.
I've been using the site for a couple years now as well as a few other people. Great quantity, and quality of music available. (I usually download at 320 kbs.) Never had a problem with anything I've ever had to do with them. There are a number of artists that I've tried listening to after the site lists them as "Artists similar to". A lot of them I liked, and ended up buying the cd's for. Oh, and the download speeds for the VIP members, are usually around 200kb or so.
In almost every way, I sympathize with everyone out there who went through HS as an outsider. A decade ago, I was one too. Luckily for me, I had several things in my favor though. First of all, I'm 6'3", and in HS I was amongst the biggest people in the school. The bullies would try to start fights, after a while I got tired of the little jibes, and I would finish the fight. I never had to fight the same person twice. I also lucked out by joining Stage Crew. It was run by a teacher who appreciated everyone for what they could contribute, not how well they fit in the mainstream. I put enough time in that I ended up practically running the stage. Even the most popular kids in school learned to stay on my good side or risk some kind of minor 'mishap' the next time they were onstage to receive another popularity-type award. I was also good enough at sports that they couldn't get me there either. They wanted me for their teams, but I had no desire whatsoever to spend more time with the SOB's than I had to in class. (Amazingly enough, we actually had a couple of jocks in the honors classes. Who'da thunk it?) Anyway, I can remember the pure hatred that I used to feel for so many people at school. I can remember thinking on a couple of occasions that if I ever had the chance, I'd get even. Luckily, I never got the chance while I was still angry. I had the knowledge, & the will to do something like what happened last week. The only thing that saved me was a lack of opportunity. Its amazing just how close my HS of over 2k people came to being reduced by a rather large number. How many kids are out there that are still trapped in school? How many more tragedies are just waiting for their opportunities to happen? How many?
April 1st is never a good day for news...
on
Slashdot:Mark 2
·
· Score: 1
How anyone can hold any reasonable expectation of actually getting reliable news on April 1st is beyond me.
Let's remember, APRIL FOOL'S DAY is for playing practical jokes. Our favorite websites are run by people who will never see even a small fraction of the people who's lives they influence on a daily basis. Every one of these people also has a sense of humor, usually as twisted as our own. It is only natural that they indulge in a joke of their own on this day.
If you can honestly state that you would never play a joke on the public, were you in the position to do so (like those at UserFriendly, SegFault, SlashDot, etc...) Then you are either lying through your teeth, or you're someone who should never be allowed to BE in that kind of position.
Slashdot Mirror
Here is one article written about it (by someone who believes in AGW)
http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/02/leaked-docs-from-heartland-institute-cause-a-stir-but-is-one-a-fake/253165/
If the guy has Verizon FiOS, and is using the ActionTec router that was installed as part of the service, he does not own it. Verizon does NOT sell the router to the customer. (Buying the router is never an option.)
Verizon supplies the router to support TV & Internet services over FiOS, and Verizon will repair or replace the router at any time that there is a problem with it without charging the customer. (With the exception of incidents of vandalism, or a pattern of abuse requiring multiple swaps of the router over time.)
[I currently work for Verizon, and install FiOS every day. (Yes, the majority of the STUPID configuration decisions are forced on us by management to save time & effort from dealing with the average tech knowledge of both customers and other technicians with little or no knowledge about networks or security.)]
Actually, Verizon is even now leasing some of it's fiber lines to competing companies. (At least they are in PA) Granted, they are doing this more to prevent anyone from claiming that Verizon is creating a new monopoly, than from any intention of being nice.
And no, they aren't raping the competing company. Verizon really is charging them Verizon's cost to provide the phone service. The "reasonable Rates" that Verizon is required to sell service to smaller competitors are nothing more than a forced subsidy, paid for by Verizon.
Verizon is perfectly willing to have other companies offering service to people in areas that VZ serves, they're just not happy with having to pay for that company to do it.
Because Verizon is getting OUT of the copper network business. (Have you looked at the price os copper lately?)
Oh, and those "Reasonable Rates" that the smaller companies insist are necessary if they are going to provide competition? Those are actually LOWER than what it costs Verizon to provide the service to them. Damn straight the rates go up when they lease service over fiber, now they are getting the service at cost. (No profit for Verizon, but not a loss anymore, either.)
Before I get into this, I'll point out a couple of points:
I work for Verizon as a Service Tech (and was originally hired as a Fiber Splicer)
I am working almost every day doing fiber installs at people's homes.
Have you ever wondered why Verizon charges so much for their POTS, when you can go to a competing company, pay a lot less, and still have your phone service arrive over Verizon equipment? It's a side effect of the Ma Bell breakup. Verizon is required to sell phone service to their competitors at a rate which is quite a bit lower than it costs them to provide it. Who picks up the extra costs? All of the normal Verizon customers.
Since Verizon is building this new Fiber network from scratch, they're not required to sell phone service at a loss to their competitors. As a matter of fact, they're not required to sell it to them at all. But they are anyway. The competing companies just have to buy it at cost now.
The copper network is OLD , and it costs a lot of money to keep it running. Fiber (unlike copper) doesn't care if it gets wet, it doesn't degrade over time nearly as quickly as copper does, troubleshooting, and repairing fiber is faster, cheaper, and easier than it is for copper.
When Verizon says that they are setting aside some of their bandwidth for video, they aren't talking about backbone bandwidth for internet. They are referring to some of the capacity built into the fiber network itself.
Every customer I've dealt with has loved the increased speed that they are getting with the fiber, but I love something that they might never even realize. The fiber network is much more reliable. Verizon's phone customers will have much fewer phone outages. (And some of the minor annoyances that people see now with the old copper connections. Hums, static, etc... If they do hear it, it's within the house.)
Oh, and if you have the 15 Mb/s service, and order a movie on demand, you shouldn't see any adverse effect on your internet connection. Since from the time that movie starts, until it ends, your connection will be going as fast as the equipment will support. (30 Mb/s minimum. Which, I'm sure, some people will have some interesting ideas for how to utilize that temporarily bigger pipe.)
Hopefully, this will clear up some misunderstandings coming from this story.
I've been using the site for a couple years now as well as a few other people.
Great quantity, and quality of music available. (I usually download at 320 kbs.) Never had a problem with anything I've ever had to do with them.
There are a number of artists that I've tried listening to after the site lists them as "Artists similar to". A lot of them I liked, and ended up buying the cd's for.
Oh, and the download speeds for the VIP members, are usually around 200kb or so.
In almost every way, I sympathize with everyone out there who went through HS as an outsider. A decade ago, I was one too. Luckily for me, I had several things in my favor though.
First of all, I'm 6'3", and in HS I was amongst the biggest people in the school. The bullies would try to start fights, after a while I got tired of the little jibes, and I would finish the fight. I never had to fight the same person twice.
I also lucked out by joining Stage Crew. It was run by a teacher who appreciated everyone for what they could contribute, not how well they fit in the mainstream. I put enough time in that I ended up practically running the stage. Even the most popular kids in school learned to stay on my good side or risk some kind of minor 'mishap' the next time they were onstage to receive another popularity-type award.
I was also good enough at sports that they couldn't get me there either. They wanted me for their teams, but I had no desire whatsoever to spend more time with the SOB's than I had to in class. (Amazingly enough, we actually had a couple of jocks in the honors classes. Who'da thunk it?)
Anyway, I can remember the pure hatred that I used to feel for so many people at school. I can remember thinking on a couple of occasions that if I ever had the chance, I'd get even.
Luckily, I never got the chance while I was still angry. I had the knowledge, & the will to do something like what happened last week. The only thing that saved me was a lack of opportunity.
Its amazing just how close my HS of over 2k people came to being reduced by a rather large number.
How many kids are out there that are still trapped in school? How many more tragedies are just waiting for their opportunities to happen?
How many?
How anyone can hold any reasonable expectation of actually getting reliable news on April 1st is beyond me.
Let's remember, APRIL FOOL'S DAY is for playing practical jokes. Our favorite websites are run by people who will never see even a small fraction of the people who's lives they influence on a daily basis. Every one of these people also has a sense of humor, usually as twisted as our own. It is only natural that they indulge in a joke of their own on this day.
If you can honestly state that you would never play a joke on the public, were you in the position to do so (like those at UserFriendly, SegFault, SlashDot, etc...) Then you are either lying through your teeth, or you're someone who should never be allowed to BE in that kind of position.
Peace,