When Comcast quoted the $80 (plus tax) cost for my house, I told them to "shove it" and hung up. I then looked into upgrading from analog-to-digital reception One of the best decisions I've ever made, since I get a lot of the same things cable has (movie channel, history channel, TLC-type channel, qubo kiddie channel, foreign programming channel, national networks, local channels, et cetera), and it costs nothing. ~40 channels at $0.00
>>>Did I miss that in the Constitution or in the UN list of human rights?
Yes you did. Also the Declaration of Independence. ALL things belong to the People and ALL authority derives from the People. "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people." "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the People." "Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed." - I could also quote the 50 Member State constitutions which include similar observations/laws but I'll just stop there.
The roads are common property of the People. The air is common property of the People. And so too are the airwaves which carry radio, television, cellphones, et cetera part of the common property of the People. It is morally wrong to take-away OUR common property, our free television and radio, and lock it up behind a ~$100/month cellphone paywall. .
>>>They produced the content. They maintain the infrastructure.
And the stations and transmitters. That's true, but the landlord is the American People. We have the power, via our government, to revoke those leases/licenses anytime we wish. In fact the FCC has done that several times over the decades. It's just like kicking-out a misbehaving tenant.
Yeah I guessed poorly when I said a billion. My bad .
>>>If the 1 million celltowers can be built for say 150,000, then that's about $150 billion dollars
Upgrading the 1/5th of Americans (20 million homes) stick stuck on dialup users to DSL (using already-existing phonelines) only costs $10 billion. 150 versus 10. The FCC is pursuing the expensive wasteful strategy rather than the cheaper sane policy. They are also all-but-killing Free TV in the process, whereas a Dialup to DSL upgrade would leave Free TV intact.
>>>More Internet radio than I can handle is available for $10/month here
I don't believe you. There is no place in the US or EU where you can buy wireless internet for your car, and only spend $10 per month. Hell even wired internet isn't that cheap, unless its dialup.
Plus there are overage fees. Go over 5 GB per month and get socked with a fine. That's easy to do if you're constantly streaming music in your car.
Not analog. It's digital just like a 56k modem is digital. Also the range is upto 15 miles with a DSL repeater, although most phone companies just run a fiber optic to feed the DSLAM. It's an easy install. From the DSLAM they can use existing phone lines to feed the 100 or so homes.
I was just talking to a guy who had 26.4k dialup service, and then they upgraded him to DSL. He jumped to 1500k literally overnight.
I can't. Foreign countries use a lot of government subsidies, so the true cost is hidden in the taxes. Sure $10/month might look like a great deal for 10 Mbit/s in France, but not if another $40 is being sucked from your paycheck each week. That means you're actually paying $170 per month - more than what an American pays.
About 0.2% of our daily consumption. In other words practically nothing, compared to how much was not spilled and instead was burned in cars, factories, and electricity plants.
>>>Do you really think America has only been spending money on the military since 2008?
STRAWMAN ARGUMENT (logical fallacy). No I did not say that and it's rude to place words into other people's mouths. What I said was that the military spending only represents 10% of the last years' +debt, so placing all the blame on the military is illogical. Even if you completely killed-off the military, the debt since Bush left would still have increased +1.3 trillion.
And I'll add this:
Both Bush and Obama are assholes, and you are fool to defend either of them. Smart people are not so easily duped by the Duopoly.
So Bush increased the debt by 1/2 trillion per year. Obama's increased the debt $1.5 trillion in just his first year, and the CBO projects it will continue being plus 1 trillion per year from now until 2017 (end of Obama's second term). In other words Obama's increasing the debt by double per year than Bush.
Therefore why place all the blame on George Duh Bush, when Obama is twice as bad?
>>>Do those mountain towns have phones in them? Do they have infrastructure? Yes and Yes! Next excuse.
It took about 70 years for those mountain towns to get phone service after the telephone's invention. For some reason you expect them to all have high-speed web browsing only 20 years after the WWW's invention. That's not logical.
It's an average ya dope. In the same way a professor might say, "The average for this test was 70%," that means some people got 100% while others flunked with 40%, and there was a sprinkling of other scores in-and-around 70. The purpose is to rank NH's average score versus the average score for other US and EU states. .
>>>a work of fiction
It came from speedtest.net which is not a government entity, not biased, and not fiction (speeds are measured directly). Nice try though. You remind me of Glenn Beck the way you attempt to twist the facts with false & erroneous accusations.
Yes I am. The electromagnetic spectrum belongs to me and the People in general. The FCC has zero right to take-away OUR common property and lock it up behind a ~$100/month cellphone paywall. .
>>>I don't think we need to use the vast amounts of spectrum to maintain free TV and radio, though.
Free AM, FM, and TV bands represent less than 2 percent of the total usable spectrum. The word "vast" does not apply. If your precious iGadget or cellphone needs more space, then use channels 52 to 83 which we have already given you. If that's still not enough, then stop picking on us and take it from elsewhere (like shortwave). .
>>>Comcast has 100 channels @ $360/yr
I called comcast a few weeks ago and they told me that tier is (1) only 60 channels not 100 and (2) would cost $65 plus an extra $5 per TV (box rental) or $80 per month plus tax. Total: $1020/yr.
>>>Look at how popular handheld wireless devices have become
Look at how popular Free TV has become. 15% of the nation watches it, and a lot of them are new viewers due to quitting $80 cable to get an antenna instead. It would be a shame to kill that off and hand it over to cellphones that requires ~$100 a month to steam video off the net, and thereby harms the people who quit cable to try and save money.
A country that fines people almost $1000 for not "voluntarily" buying hopsital insurance is not a "best" country. Nor it is free.
What's next? Fines for people that buy normal cars instead of Priuses/hybrids? Fines for people who don't bu life insurance? Fines for people who don't buy a new computer once every year? Once the precedent is set then the idea of fining people can be extended to other facets of life.
>>>in the scenario in which every home in business in the United States and every other OECD country had a broadband connection, the OECD would rank the United States 20th >>>
In other words the OECD lies to make the US look bad. I suspect the same would be true for their healthcare report, where even if Obama's single-payer plan for free healthcare for all had passed, the US would still rank poorly.
First the customers don't have to upgrade to DSL if they think it's too costly. They are welcome to stay on Dialup if they wish. The key is that now they would have a government-mandated CHOICE where they did not have one before. I have a friend who would gladly pay $30 a month to get DSL like I have, but he doesn't have to. Nobody is "forcing" him. He could stay with the $15 dialup he has now. (In fact I have both - DSL for speed and Dialup for backup.)
Second there's no reason to think DSL will be that much higher, especially with the Universal Service Fund helping to subsidize the DSLAM installations.
The US actually has 210 designated market areas (DMAs).
A country like Sweden has what? 5? 10? I think these numbers alone show why wiring-up Sweden is easier than wiring up the continent-sized US (or EU for that matter).
>>>DVD has a capacity of 10 mbits. Blu-Ray has around 50 or 60.
(1) That's the maximum. The average is only half the numbers your listed. (2) HDTV only needs 9 Mbit/s for MPEG2 and 4.5 Mbit/s for MPEG4, so you only "need" 5 megabit/s minimum to steam a MPEG4 HD video. Times however many people live in the house. .
>>>why you need any technological upgrade
I consider killing off HDTV and handing-over that EM space to iGadgets to watch TV on a tiny 3 inch screen to be a technological Downgrade, not an upgrade.
You first. You're the one(s) who are supporting the FCC Plan to kill-off channels 25 and up for antenna television. We have occupied this "lawn" since the 1950s and don't want to give it up. We enjoy getting free entertainment, news, foreign programming, tornado warnings, and so on. We've already agreed to give channels 52 to 83 for cellphone & internet expansion. We've shared. We've done our part. No more.
>>>Why do we need all those highways. Other than rush hour they're mostly empty.
(1) I can tell you've never driven during the day. Interstates are not full at 2 in the afternoon, but they're not empty either. Trucks are constantly running day and night.
(2) We don't need an 8-lane wide interstate running to everybody's garage. Neither do we need 100 Mbit/s line to everybody's home. The government is supposed to provide what people NEED as a minimum, not waste resources on 8-lane wide driveways (real or virtual).
(sigh). I simply wondered why he needs it. If he can't think of a reason, then he doesn't "need" it. He merely wants it and that's not the same thing. It's like how I want a Porsche but don't really need one. I don't expect the government to setup a program and start handing-out free Porches so I can cruise I5 at 200 miles an hour. Why? Because it's not needed.
It's important that we as Americans separate need from want, else we'll soon end up like Greece (bankrupt and on the verge of collapse).
Who cares? I don't care if Russia pulls into the #1 spot. They are a democracy now, and I wish them all the best of luck. Besides you would expect them to have faster internet, when you consider how much new infrastructure that American and European companies have installed there.
And some aren't looking at all. This FCC Plan's primary goal is to extend wireless internet to rural communities and farmers. But you would need a billion cell towers to attain 99.9% coverage of this whole continent. Now THAT will cost.
>>>At least ordinary radio isn't digitalized and laden with a subscription fee yet.
I concur on the Amish part. The economy collapses and they barely notice; they just keep on planting their food and enjoying life. Most of them are rich compared to most of us (they have half-a-million or more in cash or in the bank). As for Digital Radio no date has been set but I expect the FCC to shutoff analog radio by 2020 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HD_Radio
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I'm an urbanite and I don't have cable either.
When Comcast quoted the $80 (plus tax) cost for my house, I told them to "shove it" and hung up. I then looked into upgrading from analog-to-digital reception One of the best decisions I've ever made, since I get a lot of the same things cable has (movie channel, history channel, TLC-type channel, qubo kiddie channel, foreign programming channel, national networks, local channels, et cetera), and it costs nothing. ~40 channels at $0.00
Beat cable or satellite.
>>>Did I miss that in the Constitution or in the UN list of human rights?
Yes you did. Also the Declaration of Independence. ALL things belong to the People and ALL authority derives from the People. "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people." "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the People." "Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed." - I could also quote the 50 Member State constitutions which include similar observations/laws but I'll just stop there.
The roads are common property of the People. The air is common property of the People. And so too are the airwaves which carry radio, television, cellphones, et cetera part of the common property of the People. It is morally wrong to take-away OUR common property, our free television and radio, and lock it up behind a ~$100/month cellphone paywall.
.
>>>They produced the content. They maintain the infrastructure.
And the stations and transmitters. That's true, but the landlord is the American People. We have the power, via our government, to revoke those leases/licenses anytime we wish. In fact the FCC has done that several times over the decades. It's just like kicking-out a misbehaving tenant.
Yeah I guessed poorly when I said a billion. My bad
.
>>>If the 1 million celltowers can be built for say 150,000, then that's about $150 billion dollars
Upgrading the 1/5th of Americans (20 million homes) stick stuck on dialup users to DSL (using already-existing phonelines) only costs $10 billion. 150 versus 10. The FCC is pursuing the expensive wasteful strategy rather than the cheaper sane policy. They are also all-but-killing Free TV in the process, whereas a Dialup to DSL upgrade would leave Free TV intact.
>>>More Internet radio than I can handle is available for $10/month here
I don't believe you. There is no place in the US or EU where you can buy wireless internet for your car, and only spend $10 per month. Hell even wired internet isn't that cheap, unless its dialup.
Plus there are overage fees. Go over 5 GB per month and get socked with a fine. That's easy to do if you're constantly streaming music in your car.
>>>DSL has a limited range for the analog portion
Not analog. It's digital just like a 56k modem is digital. Also the range is upto 15 miles with a DSL repeater, although most phone companies just run a fiber optic to feed the DSLAM. It's an easy install. From the DSLAM they can use existing phone lines to feed the 100 or so homes.
I was just talking to a guy who had 26.4k dialup service, and then they upgraded him to DSL. He jumped to 1500k literally overnight.
I can't. Foreign countries use a lot of government subsidies, so the true cost is hidden in the taxes. Sure $10/month might look like a great deal for 10 Mbit/s in France, but not if another $40 is being sucked from your paycheck each week. That means you're actually paying $170 per month - more than what an American pays.
About 0.2% of our daily consumption. In other words practically nothing, compared to how much was not spilled and instead was burned in cars, factories, and electricity plants.
>>>Do you really think America has only been spending money on the military since 2008?
STRAWMAN ARGUMENT (logical fallacy). No I did not say that and it's rude to place words into other people's mouths. What I said was that the military spending only represents 10% of the last years' +debt, so placing all the blame on the military is illogical. Even if you completely killed-off the military, the debt since Bush left would still have increased +1.3 trillion.
And I'll add this:
Both Bush and Obama are assholes, and you are fool to defend either of them. Smart people are not so easily duped by the Duopoly.
>>>yes you can blame the debt on Bush.
So Bush increased the debt by 1/2 trillion per year. Obama's increased the debt $1.5 trillion in just his first year, and the CBO projects it will continue being plus 1 trillion per year from now until 2017 (end of Obama's second term). In other words Obama's increasing the debt by double per year than Bush.
Therefore why place all the blame on George Duh Bush, when Obama is twice as bad?
>>>Do those mountain towns have phones in them? Do they have infrastructure? Yes and Yes! Next excuse.
It took about 70 years for those mountain towns to get phone service after the telephone's invention. For some reason you expect them to all have high-speed web browsing only 20 years after the WWW's invention. That's not logical.
>>> 9Mbit/s in rural New Hampshire? Not a chance.
It's an average ya dope. In the same way a professor might say, "The average for this test was 70%," that means some people got 100% while others flunked with 40%, and there was a sprinkling of other scores in-and-around 70. The purpose is to rank NH's average score versus the average score for other US and EU states.
.
>>>a work of fiction
It came from speedtest.net which is not a government entity, not biased, and not fiction (speeds are measured directly). Nice try though. You remind me of Glenn Beck the way you attempt to twist the facts with false & erroneous accusations.
>>>you're entitled that the number of things
Yes I am. The electromagnetic spectrum belongs to me and the People in general. The FCC has zero right to take-away OUR common property and lock it up behind a ~$100/month cellphone paywall.
.
>>>I don't think we need to use the vast amounts of spectrum to maintain free TV and radio, though.
Free AM, FM, and TV bands represent less than 2 percent of the total usable spectrum. The word "vast" does not apply. If your precious iGadget or cellphone needs more space, then use channels 52 to 83 which we have already given you. If that's still not enough, then stop picking on us and take it from elsewhere (like shortwave).
.
>>>Comcast has 100 channels @ $360/yr
I called comcast a few weeks ago and they told me that tier is (1) only 60 channels not 100 and (2) would cost $65 plus an extra $5 per TV (box rental) or $80 per month plus tax. Total: $1020/yr.
>>>Look at how popular handheld wireless devices have become
Look at how popular Free TV has become. 15% of the nation watches it, and a lot of them are new viewers due to quitting $80 cable to get an antenna instead. It would be a shame to kill that off and hand it over to cellphones that requires ~$100 a month to steam video off the net, and thereby harms the people who quit cable to try and save money.
>>>Well, HD video streaming does take a ton of bandwidth
Not really. HDTV uses about 4.5 Mbit/s for MPEG4 video and 9 Mbit/s for MPEG2 video.
A country that fines people almost $1000 for not "voluntarily" buying hopsital insurance is not a "best" country. Nor it is free.
What's next? Fines for people that buy normal cars instead of Priuses/hybrids? Fines for people who don't bu life insurance? Fines for people who don't buy a new computer once every year? Once the precedent is set then the idea of fining people can be extended to other facets of life.
>>>in the scenario in which every home in business in the United States and every other OECD country had a broadband connection, the OECD would rank the United States 20th
>>>
In other words the OECD lies to make the US look bad. I suspect the same would be true for their healthcare report, where even if Obama's single-payer plan for free healthcare for all had passed, the US would still rank poorly.
>>>you're forcing
No you're not.
First the customers don't have to upgrade to DSL if they think it's too costly. They are welcome to stay on Dialup if they wish. The key is that now they would have a government-mandated CHOICE where they did not have one before. I have a friend who would gladly pay $30 a month to get DSL like I have, but he doesn't have to. Nobody is "forcing" him. He could stay with the $15 dialup he has now. (In fact I have both - DSL for speed and Dialup for backup.)
Second there's no reason to think DSL will be that much higher, especially with the Universal Service Fund helping to subsidize the DSLAM installations.
The US actually has 210 designated market areas (DMAs).
A country like Sweden has what? 5? 10? I think these numbers alone show why wiring-up Sweden is easier than wiring up the continent-sized US (or EU for that matter).
>>>DVD has a capacity of 10 mbits. Blu-Ray has around 50 or 60.
(1) That's the maximum. The average is only half the numbers your listed. (2) HDTV only needs 9 Mbit/s for MPEG2 and 4.5 Mbit/s for MPEG4, so you only "need" 5 megabit/s minimum to steam a MPEG4 HD video. Times however many people live in the house.
.
>>>why you need any technological upgrade
I consider killing off HDTV and handing-over that EM space to iGadgets to watch TV on a tiny 3 inch screen to be a technological Downgrade, not an upgrade.
Oh, and one more thing...
>>>GET OFF MY LAWN!
You first. You're the one(s) who are supporting the FCC Plan to kill-off channels 25 and up for antenna television. We have occupied this "lawn" since the 1950s and don't want to give it up. We enjoy getting free entertainment, news, foreign programming, tornado warnings, and so on. We've already agreed to give channels 52 to 83 for cellphone & internet expansion. We've shared. We've done our part. No more.
>>>Why do we need all those highways. Other than rush hour they're mostly empty.
(1) I can tell you've never driven during the day. Interstates are not full at 2 in the afternoon, but they're not empty either. Trucks are constantly running day and night.
(2) We don't need an 8-lane wide interstate running to everybody's garage. Neither do we need 100 Mbit/s line to everybody's home. The government is supposed to provide what people NEED as a minimum, not waste resources on 8-lane wide driveways (real or virtual).
(sigh). I simply wondered why he needs it. If he can't think of a reason, then he doesn't "need" it. He merely wants it and that's not the same thing. It's like how I want a Porsche but don't really need one. I don't expect the government to setup a program and start handing-out free Porches so I can cruise I5 at 200 miles an hour. Why? Because it's not needed.
It's important that we as Americans separate need from want, else we'll soon end up like Greece (bankrupt and on the verge of collapse).
Who cares? I don't care if Russia pulls into the #1 spot. They are a democracy now, and I wish them all the best of luck. Besides you would expect them to have faster internet, when you consider how much new infrastructure that American and European companies have installed there.
>>>They're looking at cost only.
And some aren't looking at all. This FCC Plan's primary goal is to extend wireless internet to rural communities and farmers. But you would need a billion cell towers to attain 99.9% coverage of this whole continent. Now THAT will cost.
>>>At least ordinary radio isn't digitalized and laden with a subscription fee yet.
I concur on the Amish part. The economy collapses and they barely notice; they just keep on planting their food and enjoying life. Most of them are rich compared to most of us (they have half-a-million or more in cash or in the bank). As for Digital Radio no date has been set but I expect the FCC to shutoff analog radio by 2020 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HD_Radio