It's not really a competitor to FTTH (or other fast, wired types of connection). They are complementary technologies:
- There's no point in wasting limited EM spectrum providing data services to a fixed/non-movable point like a home or business. Even if the wireless technology is just as fast/reliable as wired, it's just plain inefficient. Leave the wireless spectrum free for mobile devices (which generate more than enough demand by themselves to saturate any amount of bandwidth you throw at them)
- Throughput through fibre will always be quicker. Even if this tech theoretically manage 30 Gbps, that's standing right under the tower sharing your connection with no other people. In the real world it will be substantially less and will degrade with distance, other sources of EM and the number of people using it. Fibre does not suffer from these issues. And at the time you really are pushing gigabits per second reliably over wireless, fibre tech will be capable of pushing terabits.
- Wireless generally is higher latency than wired connections and/or is less reliable at coping with poor weather, sources of EM interference etc. (this is a tradeoff - error correction techniques can improve reliability at the expensive of latency and throughput)
And finally... you need a good wired network to supply the backhaul bandwidth TO the wireless towers. In a world where wireless devices are consuming more and more bandwidth, this becomes even more necessary as you have to pack more and more capacity (i.e. more towers/access points) in to meet demand. So you start to need fibre to more and more places anyway, even if you are planning on building a completely wireless network.
Note that I'm not anti-wireless. News like this is awesome, and wireless tech will continue to get better I'm sure. But you need BOTH a good wired, and wireless network. They are complementary, not competitors.
Fixed wireless (3G, or now 4G) also services homes and business in areas not covered by other forms of (wired) internet. And it beats the hell out of the alternative (i.e. satellite).
Ah right, gotcha. Yeah of course, iPhones are more expensive than most other phones, it was just the example that sprung to mind when you hear people trying to compare subsidised/contract costs with outright costs (Australians are guilty of this too, idiots on forums complaining that the iPhone is "only $200!" in America, not realising that's on contract).
Similar story here with my iPhone... bought it outright and went on the Vodafail $20 cap. Could barely use the data features of the phone for the first 6 months or so due to Vodafone's network congestion (though it's got considerably better now that they have the new 850 Mhz towers up and running). But that's another story.
All NCSoft MMOs I've played (Lineage II, Aion, Guild Wars) do this. Pretty sure it's a legal requirement in Korea (where they are based, though GW wasn't Korean-developed, so who knows...)
I think you missed the point of this sub-thread. The point was not that Australians get ripped off, but that they actually don't, because they have the option to buy the phone outright and unlocked and go on a cheaper 'SIM only' plan with no contract.
To take your Nexus S example, an American might say to you "we can get that phone free! You're getting ripped off paying $500!" But that isn't considering the fact that he's locked into a two year contract paying high monthly rates compared to us. His phone isn't actually free at all, he's just paying it off over the contract duration. The problem in the US is though that even if you DO buy a phone outright and unlocked, carriers don't offer many 'SIM only' plans. They ONLY offer the plans that include a handset repayment... even if there's no handset TO repay.
I'd agree if it was a full-price 60+ dollar game, but most people paid like 5-10 bucks for Minecraft (if they bought it in alpha or beta, which most did). There's easily $10 of content in there. Hell I've put more hours into MC than any other game in the last 2 years... definitely worth the money. And I'm still enjoying it... making my little cities bigger and bigger.
If you like the creative building aspect of it (like me), it's fantastic. If you want an actual game with lots of 'content', then yeah, I guess it's not very good, but that's not really what MC is about in my opinion.
I had my phone stolen a couple of years ago in Australia (it was a Motorola feature phone of some description). Went home, found the box it came in and noted the IMEI. Called my carrier, said my phone was stolen and quoted the IMEI. It agreed with an IMEI they had seen associated with my account (which they will obviously check so you don't just quote a random IMEI with no proof it has anything to do with you). So they blocked it.
The 'block' is just a blacklist that all Australian carriers have access to. If an IMEI appears on the blacklist, it will not be permitted to connect to any carrier's network. It's just within Australia though... if they phone is taken overseas it will work just fine.
Yep. My iPhone was $900 here in Australia. I have some American relatives and when they visited they were all like "man, you got ripped off, it's only $200 (or whatever) in the US".
Then we added up what it cost me vs. them over 24 months. I was way ahead (since my plan is only $15/month).
A lot of people buy a used phone (here in Australia at least). I tend to upgrade my phone each year or two but sell the old one on Ebay (and put the money towards a new one).
And some phones hold their value really well. iPhones in particular - I sold my iPhone 4 (which I originally purchased for $859) on Ebay for ~$700 when the 4S came out. They lose very little value if you keep in in a case + screen protector and look after them a bit.
I imagine in the US doing this would be much more difficult though, cause your phones are usually carrier-locked, not to mention the mix of network types (CDMA, GSM) and frequencies (T-Mobile using different 3G frequencies than AT&T).
1. They got away with calling LTE "4G" (the ITU has reluctantly now followed suit).
2. Worse, AT&T is advertising their DC-HSPA+ and HSPA+ networks as 4G (which is completely insane). Amusingly, the recent iOS 5.1 release running on an iPhone 4S now reports "4G" when on HSPA+... but ~only~ on AT&T's network (connect it to any other (DC-)HSPA+ network, such as Telstra in Australia, and it still says "3G".
Well it was a similarly cool and wet summer in eastern Australia as well this year. Last summer was too.
Two La Nina summers in a row like that are very rare, but were sorely needed after having about 8 years in a row of MUCH drier and warmer conditions than average. But a cooler year or two doesn't mean anything in the wider scheme of things, especially if its coming off a decade-long warm streak. There are still at least 3 or 4 max temp records being broken for every min temp record, looking across any time scale you wish to use, in the last few decades.
Plus these things are highly regional. While NZ and eastern AU may have been cool and wet, western AU had an absolute scorcher. 40C+ for weeks on end over in Perth (they get periods like that every summer, but the last few have been particularly insane). I don't think you can use regional data to make any judgements either way on climate change... global mean temp is about the only measure that makes sense.
No kidding. I'm Australian, but I leave my hot summer here to go to Wisconsin each year for Christmas (have done this every year for over a decade, have family there). It's in Chicago that I get off the plane (not enduring a 6 hours layover and paying some obscene price for a 20 minute long connecting flight to Appleton, after I've already spent 3 grand and 24 hours getting to ORD).
Normally it's quite an experience leaving on a nice summer morning, landing in the Midwestern winter and taking that first step out of the airport. That rush of cold air feels amazing when you haven't felt it in a year.
Well this year I arrived and walked quite happily across the parking lot at ORD to the car in the same light t-shirt that I left Australia in and felt completely comfortable (since it was in the freaking 50s). Now you do get days like that in WI/IL every winter, sure. But it stayed like that the whole month I was there. We had one tiny little snowfall of less than an inch just before Xmas, but that was about it. Certainly was an unusually mild winter - at times it would have been warm even for a winter at home.)
Well torts, or civil wrongs, as we know them are a common law concept (relying on precedent). Most of continental Europe does not use common law; rather they have a codified system. Norway may or may not have legislated an law under which this person could claim, I don't know, but it wouldn't really fall under tort law either way.
Hmm do you get money out over the counter or something? I too like the $100s (I think 10s and 100s are the two most visually pleasing Australian notes), but haven't handled one in many years, since ATMs only give you $50s and $20s:(
That's a very common use case for me (paying friends for things like concert tickets or dinner). And here (Australia) it's as simple as:
1. Log onto bank's internet banking website 2. Select 'payments and transfers' 3. Select friend's name from address book (if I've paid him in the past), or type in his account number (if I haven't). 4. Enter amount to transfer and click 'Send'.
Have been able to do this for a decade at least now. Works to any account at any bank. No fees. And can do it right there in front of the guy I'm paying from my phone if I need to.
Only downside is it does take ~1 business day to arrive (so if I send it on Sunday evening, it'll probably hit his account very early Tuesday morning (1 or 2 am).
Here (Australia, though I'm sure it's similar in other countries too), you generally don't need the PIN for transactions under a certain value ($30). Plus, more places are getting those swipe-less card readers where you just have to tap the card rather than swipe it. Combined that makes small transactions pretty brain-dead easy. Tap your card. The thing beeps. Done.
Paying tradespeople/builders/plumbers etc. is the sole remaining use of cheques here in Australia too, but even that is dying rapidly. Most tradespeople now accept EFTPOS (i.e. debit card swipe + PIN) - those little portable POS units are affordable and reliable these days.
I don't know anyone under the age of ~60 that actually even has a cheque account. I've certainly never written or received a cheque in my life (even though I've definitely paid plumbers and builders quite a few times).
In Australia (which like Sweden is rapidly becoming cashless), physical bank offices/branches are becoming rarer and smaller. In the 5 or so kilometres surrounding where I live, their number is easily half what it was 10-15 years ago. I've only actually walked into one three times in my adult life (once to apply for an account, once to cancel one, once to do some foreign exchange). I've never done an actual transaction at one (I'm 30 years old, BTW).
From what I can tell, physical branches are now mostly used by:
- Businesses/stores, who need to deposit actual cash at the end of each business day or week; - People signing up for (or cancelling) accounts; - People applying for or enquiring about personal loans or mortgages (this can be done over the phone as well but for a major thing such as this many people prefer to talk face to face - I know I would) - A small number of people who don't feel comfortable with using ATMs or internet banking to do deposits, transfers and withdrawals (generally elderly, as they grew up doing it a particular way and don't want to learn a new method - which is fair enough). Most banks charge for 'over the counter' transactions these days though.
So there still are a few reasons for physical branches to exist, but they certainly don't need to be as common as they used to be (and don't need to be staffed by as many employees, since the bulk of everyday transactions have gone electronic).
As for the general shift to a cashless society, I'd say it's already happened in the younger generations here in Australia. I haven't carried cash in years (seriously, I think I have just a $20 note in my wallet at the moment and it's been sitting there untouched for who knows how long). EFTPOS handles all the day to day purchases I make, BPAY covers all my bills (I don't like direct debit... I prefer to pay them 'manually', but still electronically, using BPAY) and giving/sending money to a friend/relative etc. is as simple as selecting them in my internet banking address book and clicking 'send' (and is free, too).
Yeah I've toyed with the idea of doing that (as you say, off the shelf products that do it with DSL + 3G are few and far between, but it wouldn't be too difficult to use an old Linux box to do this).
In the end though I decided against it as my standard router already does both DSL and 3G (not simultaneously... it automatically falls back to 3G if the DSL line drops) which is good enough.
Would love some form of fibre connection if it were available in my area. I'm in Australia so I should be able to get fibre within the next couple of years as the National Broadband Network rolls out (the area a few km north of me is getting it this year, lucky sods). But for now DSL + 3G is fine.
I'm mostly looking forward to the better upload speeds on fibre rather than download - that'll make a huge difference for checking large stuff into the SVN repo at work.
Yep, vitally important if you intend to work from home for any significant time. I use an ADSL connection as my primary connection but have a 3G USB modem I can plug in if it goes down (which it hasn't ever, really, but you never know).
Sadly my phone line is quite long (>4 km) so my 3G connection is actually faster than it! (Get 10-12 Mbit down from it, as opposed to ~6 Mbps from the DSL). Latency is worse though obviously.
What I don't understand is how they are even catching people with stuff on their computers in the first place. The comments on Slashdot (in various stories, not just this one) make it sound like laptops are routinely searched at the border (both in the US, and Canada).
But I've entered both those countries 20, 30 times (I'm Australian). Not once has my laptop been searched; nor have I seen officers request to search anyone else's. They don't seem to pay any attention to electronic devices at all (not surprising, basically everyone travels with a laptop/tablet these days).
So my question is: when and where are these searches occurring? Am I just lucky, or are these searches very rare to begin with (and probably only done if someone is stopped at the border for some other reason first?)
What on earth's that got to do with anything? 'Square miles' don't commit crimes, people do. Hence surely crimes/person (or per 100k people) is the sensible metric to use.
Slashdot Mirror
This is correct.
It's not really a competitor to FTTH (or other fast, wired types of connection). They are complementary technologies:
- There's no point in wasting limited EM spectrum providing data services to a fixed/non-movable point like a home or business. Even if the wireless technology is just as fast/reliable as wired, it's just plain inefficient. Leave the wireless spectrum free for mobile devices (which generate more than enough demand by themselves to saturate any amount of bandwidth you throw at them)
- Throughput through fibre will always be quicker. Even if this tech theoretically manage 30 Gbps, that's standing right under the tower sharing your connection with no other people. In the real world it will be substantially less and will degrade with distance, other sources of EM and the number of people using it. Fibre does not suffer from these issues. And at the time you really are pushing gigabits per second reliably over wireless, fibre tech will be capable of pushing terabits.
- Wireless generally is higher latency than wired connections and/or is less reliable at coping with poor weather, sources of EM interference etc. (this is a tradeoff - error correction techniques can improve reliability at the expensive of latency and throughput)
And finally ... you need a good wired network to supply the backhaul bandwidth TO the wireless towers. In a world where wireless devices are consuming more and more bandwidth, this becomes even more necessary as you have to pack more and more capacity (i.e. more towers/access points) in to meet demand. So you start to need fibre to more and more places anyway, even if you are planning on building a completely wireless network.
Note that I'm not anti-wireless. News like this is awesome, and wireless tech will continue to get better I'm sure. But you need BOTH a good wired, and wireless network. They are complementary, not competitors.
Fixed wireless (3G, or now 4G) also services homes and business in areas not covered by other forms of (wired) internet. And it beats the hell out of the alternative (i.e. satellite).
Ah right, gotcha. Yeah of course, iPhones are more expensive than most other phones, it was just the example that sprung to mind when you hear people trying to compare subsidised/contract costs with outright costs (Australians are guilty of this too, idiots on forums complaining that the iPhone is "only $200!" in America, not realising that's on contract).
Similar story here with my iPhone ... bought it outright and went on the Vodafail $20 cap. Could barely use the data features of the phone for the first 6 months or so due to Vodafone's network congestion (though it's got considerably better now that they have the new 850 Mhz towers up and running). But that's another story.
All NCSoft MMOs I've played (Lineage II, Aion, Guild Wars) do this. Pretty sure it's a legal requirement in Korea (where they are based, though GW wasn't Korean-developed, so who knows...)
I think you missed the point of this sub-thread. The point was not that Australians get ripped off, but that they actually don't, because they have the option to buy the phone outright and unlocked and go on a cheaper 'SIM only' plan with no contract.
To take your Nexus S example, an American might say to you "we can get that phone free! You're getting ripped off paying $500!" But that isn't considering the fact that he's locked into a two year contract paying high monthly rates compared to us. His phone isn't actually free at all, he's just paying it off over the contract duration. The problem in the US is though that even if you DO buy a phone outright and unlocked, carriers don't offer many 'SIM only' plans. They ONLY offer the plans that include a handset repayment ... even if there's no handset TO repay.
I'd agree if it was a full-price 60+ dollar game, but most people paid like 5-10 bucks for Minecraft (if they bought it in alpha or beta, which most did). There's easily $10 of content in there. Hell I've put more hours into MC than any other game in the last 2 years ... definitely worth the money. And I'm still enjoying it ... making my little cities bigger and bigger.
If you like the creative building aspect of it (like me), it's fantastic. If you want an actual game with lots of 'content', then yeah, I guess it's not very good, but that's not really what MC is about in my opinion.
No, it's done with IMEI.
I had my phone stolen a couple of years ago in Australia (it was a Motorola feature phone of some description). Went home, found the box it came in and noted the IMEI. Called my carrier, said my phone was stolen and quoted the IMEI. It agreed with an IMEI they had seen associated with my account (which they will obviously check so you don't just quote a random IMEI with no proof it has anything to do with you). So they blocked it.
The 'block' is just a blacklist that all Australian carriers have access to. If an IMEI appears on the blacklist, it will not be permitted to connect to any carrier's network. It's just within Australia though ... if they phone is taken overseas it will work just fine.
Anyone can check the status (blocked or not) of any IMEI using this site: http://www.lost.amta.org.au/
Yep. My iPhone was $900 here in Australia. I have some American relatives and when they visited they were all like "man, you got ripped off, it's only $200 (or whatever) in the US".
Then we added up what it cost me vs. them over 24 months. I was way ahead (since my plan is only $15/month).
A lot of people buy a used phone (here in Australia at least). I tend to upgrade my phone each year or two but sell the old one on Ebay (and put the money towards a new one).
And some phones hold their value really well. iPhones in particular - I sold my iPhone 4 (which I originally purchased for $859) on Ebay for ~$700 when the 4S came out. They lose very little value if you keep in in a case + screen protector and look after them a bit.
I imagine in the US doing this would be much more difficult though, cause your phones are usually carrier-locked, not to mention the mix of network types (CDMA, GSM) and frequencies (T-Mobile using different 3G frequencies than AT&T).
True of all US networks.
1. They got away with calling LTE "4G" (the ITU has reluctantly now followed suit).
2. Worse, AT&T is advertising their DC-HSPA+ and HSPA+ networks as 4G (which is completely insane). Amusingly, the recent iOS 5.1 release running on an iPhone 4S now reports "4G" when on HSPA+ ... but ~only~ on AT&T's network (connect it to any other (DC-)HSPA+ network, such as Telstra in Australia, and it still says "3G".
Well it was a similarly cool and wet summer in eastern Australia as well this year. Last summer was too.
Two La Nina summers in a row like that are very rare, but were sorely needed after having about 8 years in a row of MUCH drier and warmer conditions than average. But a cooler year or two doesn't mean anything in the wider scheme of things, especially if its coming off a decade-long warm streak. There are still at least 3 or 4 max temp records being broken for every min temp record, looking across any time scale you wish to use, in the last few decades.
Plus these things are highly regional. While NZ and eastern AU may have been cool and wet, western AU had an absolute scorcher. 40C+ for weeks on end over in Perth (they get periods like that every summer, but the last few have been particularly insane). I don't think you can use regional data to make any judgements either way on climate change ... global mean temp is about the only measure that makes sense.
No kidding. I'm Australian, but I leave my hot summer here to go to Wisconsin each year for Christmas (have done this every year for over a decade, have family there). It's in Chicago that I get off the plane (not enduring a 6 hours layover and paying some obscene price for a 20 minute long connecting flight to Appleton, after I've already spent 3 grand and 24 hours getting to ORD).
Normally it's quite an experience leaving on a nice summer morning, landing in the Midwestern winter and taking that first step out of the airport. That rush of cold air feels amazing when you haven't felt it in a year.
Well this year I arrived and walked quite happily across the parking lot at ORD to the car in the same light t-shirt that I left Australia in and felt completely comfortable (since it was in the freaking 50s). Now you do get days like that in WI/IL every winter, sure. But it stayed like that the whole month I was there. We had one tiny little snowfall of less than an inch just before Xmas, but that was about it. Certainly was an unusually mild winter - at times it would have been warm even for a winter at home.)
Well torts, or civil wrongs, as we know them are a common law concept (relying on precedent). Most of continental Europe does not use common law; rather they have a codified system. Norway may or may not have legislated an law under which this person could claim, I don't know, but it wouldn't really fall under tort law either way.
Ahh, never knew that, interesting :)
Hmm do you get money out over the counter or something? I too like the $100s (I think 10s and 100s are the two most visually pleasing Australian notes), but haven't handled one in many years, since ATMs only give you $50s and $20s :(
That's a very common use case for me (paying friends for things like concert tickets or dinner). And here (Australia) it's as simple as:
1. Log onto bank's internet banking website
2. Select 'payments and transfers'
3. Select friend's name from address book (if I've paid him in the past), or type in his account number (if I haven't).
4. Enter amount to transfer and click 'Send'.
Have been able to do this for a decade at least now. Works to any account at any bank. No fees. And can do it right there in front of the guy I'm paying from my phone if I need to.
Only downside is it does take ~1 business day to arrive (so if I send it on Sunday evening, it'll probably hit his account very early Tuesday morning (1 or 2 am).
Here (Australia, though I'm sure it's similar in other countries too), you generally don't need the PIN for transactions under a certain value ($30). Plus, more places are getting those swipe-less card readers where you just have to tap the card rather than swipe it. Combined that makes small transactions pretty brain-dead easy. Tap your card. The thing beeps. Done.
Paying tradespeople/builders/plumbers etc. is the sole remaining use of cheques here in Australia too, but even that is dying rapidly. Most tradespeople now accept EFTPOS (i.e. debit card swipe + PIN) - those little portable POS units are affordable and reliable these days.
I don't know anyone under the age of ~60 that actually even has a cheque account. I've certainly never written or received a cheque in my life (even though I've definitely paid plumbers and builders quite a few times).
In Australia (which like Sweden is rapidly becoming cashless), physical bank offices/branches are becoming rarer and smaller. In the 5 or so kilometres surrounding where I live, their number is easily half what it was 10-15 years ago. I've only actually walked into one three times in my adult life (once to apply for an account, once to cancel one, once to do some foreign exchange). I've never done an actual transaction at one (I'm 30 years old, BTW).
From what I can tell, physical branches are now mostly used by:
- Businesses/stores, who need to deposit actual cash at the end of each business day or week;
- People signing up for (or cancelling) accounts;
- People applying for or enquiring about personal loans or mortgages (this can be done over the phone as well but for a major thing such as this many people prefer to talk face to face - I know I would)
- A small number of people who don't feel comfortable with using ATMs or internet banking to do deposits, transfers and withdrawals (generally elderly, as they grew up doing it a particular way and don't want to learn a new method - which is fair enough). Most banks charge for 'over the counter' transactions these days though.
So there still are a few reasons for physical branches to exist, but they certainly don't need to be as common as they used to be (and don't need to be staffed by as many employees, since the bulk of everyday transactions have gone electronic).
As for the general shift to a cashless society, I'd say it's already happened in the younger generations here in Australia. I haven't carried cash in years (seriously, I think I have just a $20 note in my wallet at the moment and it's been sitting there untouched for who knows how long). EFTPOS handles all the day to day purchases I make, BPAY covers all my bills (I don't like direct debit ... I prefer to pay them 'manually', but still electronically, using BPAY) and giving/sending money to a friend/relative etc. is as simple as selecting them in my internet banking address book and clicking 'send' (and is free, too).
Yeah I've toyed with the idea of doing that (as you say, off the shelf products that do it with DSL + 3G are few and far between, but it wouldn't be too difficult to use an old Linux box to do this).
In the end though I decided against it as my standard router already does both DSL and 3G (not simultaneously ... it automatically falls back to 3G if the DSL line drops) which is good enough.
Would love some form of fibre connection if it were available in my area. I'm in Australia so I should be able to get fibre within the next couple of years as the National Broadband Network rolls out (the area a few km north of me is getting it this year, lucky sods). But for now DSL + 3G is fine.
I'm mostly looking forward to the better upload speeds on fibre rather than download - that'll make a huge difference for checking large stuff into the SVN repo at work.
Yep, vitally important if you intend to work from home for any significant time. I use an ADSL connection as my primary connection but have a 3G USB modem I can plug in if it goes down (which it hasn't ever, really, but you never know).
Sadly my phone line is quite long (>4 km) so my 3G connection is actually faster than it! (Get 10-12 Mbit down from it, as opposed to ~6 Mbps from the DSL). Latency is worse though obviously.
What I don't understand is how they are even catching people with stuff on their computers in the first place. The comments on Slashdot (in various stories, not just this one) make it sound like laptops are routinely searched at the border (both in the US, and Canada).
But I've entered both those countries 20, 30 times (I'm Australian). Not once has my laptop been searched; nor have I seen officers request to search anyone else's. They don't seem to pay any attention to electronic devices at all (not surprising, basically everyone travels with a laptop/tablet these days).
So my question is: when and where are these searches occurring? Am I just lucky, or are these searches very rare to begin with (and probably only done if someone is stopped at the border for some other reason first?)
What on earth's that got to do with anything? 'Square miles' don't commit crimes, people do. Hence surely crimes/person (or per 100k people) is the sensible metric to use.