TI is an OEM licensor for Linuxant's driver loader. That means you can use driverloader with the native XP drivers, and that linuxant, in particular, works on making sure the TI XP drivers work great with driverloader.
Just install it in "DEMO" mode. Once it detects an ACX100, ACX110, or ACX111, it'll automagically go into full-featured mode.
TI's done linux right, at least if your worldview permits proprietary drivers.
Anyone have any idea what level of service degredation we are talking about? Are we talking about priorities for paying companies, or are we talking about intentionall introducing jitter for VOIP and Video?
Depends; People would have been okay with paying some tolls; its exorbant prices and lack of choices that doom the scheme.
If you live in an area with multiple service providers, this will be a non-issue. Some providers will realize they can make more money using an all-you-can eat billing system and high quality service; speakeasy does this, as do several of the smaller cable companies.
Minor point; Google, Yahoo, etc. . . Already pay for their own pipes, as well.
What, you thought those OC-3s going into Google's datacenters were free?
Not to belittle what you are saying, but both the content providers and the content consumers pay for bandwidth; we're already charged on both ends of the spectrum!
Macs actually generally age better than PCs, but this transition to intel breaks that. I'm not sure if it will break it indefinitely.
Universal binaries will only be produced for so long, and the performance difference in the architectures will probably doom PowerPC within a year or two.
I'd try to setup the trust in such a way that it would assure the lives of all my descendents, as well. They'd have to act as a "board", with "shareholders", leaving little room for error.
I'd want to keep the trust going for my parents. I'd want to keep it going for my children. And I'd offer cryopreservation to all my descendants; go with the program, and you get eternal life.
It's really no different than a religion, and there are plenty of people who devote themselves and their children's exsistance to an afterlive in Christ's Kingdon. I prefer to focus on something more material.
Churches collapse over time. But many churchs can run for thousands of years. A cryonics "church" would hopefully last long enough.
Besides, most of these people acknowledge there are substantial risk. Among cryonics pre-clients, you often hear the term, "Lottery Ticket". They know they may not wake up, they know they may wake up with nothing. But thats not the point; its one final adventure you can take when you are dying, and it gives you the chance to get beyond the one-sided door that is death.
No, actually, many trusts run on their own quite nicely.
Why? A properly maintained trust *is* a business in and of itself. It's lifetime employement for the maintainer and a host of other people. You don't need to kill the Golden Goose, you just need to keep it going.
Ideally, the maintainers of the fund for "The Frozen" will plan on freezing themselves, as well. It's something that would keep running indefinitely.
I'd suggest looking at prices in other countries. My british cousin spend about 12 pence per text message; thats ~20 cents. Incoming calls are free, but her average rate for outgoing is about 10 pence. That's about 18 cents per minute.
Plus she pays an 6 pound monthly fee, which i feel is rather alot.
These prices are pretty representative of Europe; I just got back from UK, France, Holland.
I'm too lazy to find Japanese or S. Korean prices, but I've heard they are similar. I know first hand that cell phones in Africa and the Mid East (GSM, of course) are _vastly_ more expensive than here. I've been in Ethiopia, Egypt, Iran, and Dubai, and its _expensive_.
Not to mention that the G5s run significantly hotter, and you can get an Athlon 64 in a notebook format. Apple still doesn't have a 64-bit notebook.
These dual-core iMacs smoke equivalent G5 iMacs if you are discussing multi-threaded applications. I also bet that system responsiveness is much higher when you are running several apps at the same time. Don't forget that iMacs have essentially 'crippiled' buses compared to powermacs and normal desktops.
And the MacBook Pro smokes the old powerbooks. A top-end G4 17" fully loaded runs World of Warcraft pretty slowly. Apparently, the lower MacBook Pro will run World of Warcraft, all visual features enabled, at 40-70 fps, which is truly fantastic. In fact, thats faster than my desktop, an Athlon 64 with a Geforce 6800, and a gig of ram.
The G5s are good at some tasks. At the high-end, water-cooled, with 4 cores, a G5 is a pretty fast machien.
A high-end, water-cooled 4 core Opteron will still crush it.
Similarly, importing 100 photos into iPhoto 6 took 35 percent less time on the Intel-based iMac, and exporting from iPhoto to a QuickTime movie took 25 percent less time. But exporting iPhoto images to a Web page took only 8 percent less time. And exporting those images to files actually took 9 percent more time on the Intel-based Macs.
Few of these tasks are processor bound. They are either bus, network, or harddisk bound.
Furthermore, I'd be curious as to the ability of these new iMacs to do two of these things at the same time, versus the old G5 iMac. Most people don't benchmark their machines, they run multiple apps at the same time, they listen to music while ripping CDs while exporting photos.
Dual processors (cores) are a tricky business. You need multiple threads or multiple apps to really see if there is a speedup, and few of these benchmarks even acknowledge that.
Not that I'm convinced this machine is a godsend, however, its easy to pick out the flaws in these intial benchmark's methodology.
And since I don't believe that we should be willing to waste $36,000 per year on their permanent incarceration, it's merely a matter of economic logic that they be disposed of. Personally, I'd harvest anything I could from them (organs, tissue, etc.) and give the proceeds to the victim's family but that's just me.
It doesn't work that way. The death penalty costs quite a bit more than life incarceration.
I have no moral "problems" with the idea of executing the guilty. My problem lies in the costs in doing so, and in the risks of executing the innocent. You'll need umpteen appeals, just in case someone is innocent, and the process of proving guilt to that degree is very expensive.
Better to throw someone in jail forever, so that they may emerge if they are innocent. Keep in mind people tend to sit on death row for 20-30 years anyways; at that point their crimes are so far in the past that I can't imagine the relatives of the victim really dwell on it.
You go to video.google.com, and you get a message:
"Your current service provider's speeds are too slow to support Internet Video. Please consider one of the following companies as an upgrade to your internet service.
Please click HERE to use video.google.com with your unsupported service. Quality of Service not guaranteed with your inferior ISP.
Thanks for your patronage of Google!"
Hell, they could even make an isp.google.com, provide an API, and allow other content providers to do the same damn thing. ISP messing with your content? Throw a nasty proxy at them. You can bet that a "Google" certification process for ISPs that was pretty consumer friendly would be a pretty big deal.
If the current trends continue, and your children reveal what you've taught them to the school's administrators, expect to be arrested, and expect to go to jail for a long time.
The New "Republicans" don't believe in parental accountability. You raise Children the way the Rigth wants you to.
Yes. I thought that Republicans were supposed to be about personal accountability and especially about parental responsibility.
With Democrats, we get unneeded and excessive government involvement in our personal lives. With Republicans, we get unneeded and excessive government involvement in our personal lives, along with unprecedented violations of civil rights and unbelievable corruption.
I was saddended yesterday by the Supreme Court's decision in the latest abortion case.
Why does no one see the irony in an administration that spouts off about, "A culture of respect for life in every stage", which then pushes for the death penalty for a wide range of crimes.
A defending freedom and liberty, while infringing our rights at every turn, and NOT limited to the realm of national security.
Hilariously, as a fairly old school conservative, the only policies of the Bush administration I can agree with was the supposed IRS reform bill (which never came), and the start of Iraq war 2 (which was our exit strategy from a 10-year announced war/bombing campaign). Both of these were botched miserably, and now we have the constitution figuratively on flames.
WhiteWolf666 an exBush supporter. All you new-school, "compassionate" "save the children" 'Republicans' can rot in hell.
P.S. last comment not directed at you, I'm just working on a new sig.
My keyboard may be dirty, yet---- I rarely get sick.
I'm a nerd. I sit here all day. Other than the 'yuck' factor, what's the problem? We live in a bacteria infested world, they outnumber us millions to one.
For those who _insist_ on a clean keyboard, stop fussing around with your damn "pry the keys off the keyboard". Either buy a plastic membrane that you can soak in disinfectant, or get a keyboard you can soak.
It's $40.00. I can't stand people whinning. Either sack up, and understand that keyboard (as well as Earth) are dirty, or spend the $40.00 and do it the easy way.
Stop bitching about, "I had to pry EACH and EVERY one of the keys OFF my keyboard! Heaven help me!"
I think you'd be surprised how quickly the U.S., Europe, Japan, Mexico, and South America would pick up the slack.
The boycott would not begin instantly; it would take to really come into effect. As this "boycott" came into existance, we'd buy more expensive products not produced in China.
Markets route around damage. We'd end up with a higher equilibrium price, but not a crippling one. Just about _any_ industry you can dream up can be built up enough to satisfy the entirety of Chinese production within 6 months or so. It'd be expensive; however it would _not_ be beyond the large American, Japanese, and European corporations budgets, and there are plenty of other places to build plants.
As someone who has conducted some amount of business in China, I can tell you its really not all that much cheaper, and our studies have determined that we could manufacture as cheaply as we do now, or even less, in either Africa or India.
Either way, in the long term we anticipate bringing production back to the U.S. We do some production here now, and our costs here are not rising nearly as fast as our costs overseas. Instability in China, a boycott in the industrialized world, or even a major hike in transport costs will bring manufacturing back to the U.S.
Why are the cable companies not doing this? Simple; it allows them to crush the telecos.
In my area, we've got 2 cable companies, and 2 telecos. You sign up for DSL/phone service? 2-4 weeks install time, 1 year minimum contract, you often pay per-minute local long distance charges, you pay for your equipment, and your telephone bill is guaranteed to be ~10% high than what you expect. You need customer service? They'll charge you if the tech steps inside your house. They'll charge you if the tech finds nothing wrong outside your house. And it'll take the tech a minimum of 2 weeks to get there.
You sign up for Cable/phone service? 1 week install time, max. Often next day service. I believe they even have a "20$ off your first bill if we don't install in 3 days" policy. No contract. Free equipment. Telephone service? All you can eat. Internet service? All you can eat. Before they will allow you to agree to service, they say, "Your first bill will be $X. All bills after that will be $Y. This rate is guaranteed till 2008. Do you accept?". Guess what; your bill will be exactly that price.
Need tech support? 3 days at the latest. Generally same day, if you call in the morning. Most techs will give you their personal cell number, and one tech is assigned to your property; if you ever need service again, you'll get the same tech.
And charge you for repairs? Hahahaha. Doesn't matter if its inside, or outside. We we're having connection problems. What does the cable company do? Run a new wire from the pole (~100 feet). Bury it for us. Run it into the house. Replace all the in house wiring (yes, inside the walls, thank god for straight shots, so they could snake it round). How much did this cost us? 0. It took 4 contractors to get the job done, too. That was a _job well done_ that deserved a tip (one of the few times I've tipped someone not out of politeness, but out of, "Holy shit, that guy did an amazing job.")
If you watch TV in my area, you see commercial after commercial where the cable companies tear into the telecos. They make fun of contracts. They make fun of shoddy service. They make fun of all these crazy random fees. Soon they'll make fun of this QoS stuff.
Having been on both sides of the fence, I have to admit they are pretty much dead on.
We've got Cable, Fiber and Wireless, both local/intermediate (LAN WLAN), and long range (cell).
Cable's rolling out everwhere. Fiber is the future of telecom companies 'in-the-know' (not Bellsouth or SBC). Wireless is easily deployable by small ISP, and Cell technology can currently handle ALL our phone needs, and will be able to handle quite a few data needs in the near future.
Tell me again why we need the old fashioned copper telephone companies again?
Competition is a beautiful thing. The FCC should let these companies strangle themselves, while the rest of the providers out there should use this as yet another selling point versus the bells.
I dunno; at least the Cable companies(yes, plural) in my area heavily advertise about all the fees/micropayments with phone companies, and sell every one of their services as 'all-you-can-eat' (phone, cable, internet), with stable pricing. This means they tell you what your monthly bill will be, taxes etc. . . included, before you sign up.
The only areas in which this is not the solution is areas with geographical monopolies. In those areas, the local utility commission need to slap the local telephone company, or make a nice deal with an alternative carrier. Either that, or roll out a community network. Or invite Google to do so, tax free, with various other incentives.
*shrug* This is a nonissue, unless Bellsouth is your only choice. Vote with your dollar, people. Change providers! Not when they implement it, change _now_.
Slashdot Mirror
Why?
TI is an OEM licensor for Linuxant's driver loader. That means you can use driverloader with the native XP drivers, and that linuxant, in particular, works on making sure the TI XP drivers work great with driverloader.
Just install it in "DEMO" mode. Once it detects an ACX100, ACX110, or ACX111, it'll automagically go into full-featured mode.
TI's done linux right, at least if your worldview permits proprietary drivers.
What exactly are we talking about?
Anyone have any idea what level of service degredation we are talking about? Are we talking about priorities for paying companies, or are we talking about intentionall introducing jitter for VOIP and Video?
Depends; People would have been okay with paying some tolls; its exorbant prices and lack of choices that doom the scheme.
If you live in an area with multiple service providers, this will be a non-issue. Some providers will realize they can make more money using an all-you-can eat billing system and high quality service; speakeasy does this, as do several of the smaller cable companies.
Minor point; Google, Yahoo, etc. . . Already pay for their own pipes, as well.
What, you thought those OC-3s going into Google's datacenters were free?
Not to belittle what you are saying, but both the content providers and the content consumers pay for bandwidth; we're already charged on both ends of the spectrum!
These teleco's can rot in hell.
Macs actually generally age better than PCs, but this transition to intel breaks that. I'm not sure if it will break it indefinitely.
Universal binaries will only be produced for so long, and the performance difference in the architectures will probably doom PowerPC within a year or two.
Depends on your own interest in cryonics.
I'd try to setup the trust in such a way that it would assure the lives of all my descendents, as well. They'd have to act as a "board", with "shareholders", leaving little room for error.
I'd want to keep the trust going for my parents. I'd want to keep it going for my children. And I'd offer cryopreservation to all my descendants; go with the program, and you get eternal life.
It's really no different than a religion, and there are plenty of people who devote themselves and their children's exsistance to an afterlive in Christ's Kingdon. I prefer to focus on something more material.
Churches collapse over time. But many churchs can run for thousands of years. A cryonics "church" would hopefully last long enough.
Besides, most of these people acknowledge there are substantial risk. Among cryonics pre-clients, you often hear the term, "Lottery Ticket". They know they may not wake up, they know they may wake up with nothing. But thats not the point; its one final adventure you can take when you are dying, and it gives you the chance to get beyond the one-sided door that is death.
No different than a religion.....
No, actually, many trusts run on their own quite nicely.
Why? A properly maintained trust *is* a business in and of itself. It's lifetime employement for the maintainer and a host of other people. You don't need to kill the Golden Goose, you just need to keep it going.
Ideally, the maintainers of the fund for "The Frozen" will plan on freezing themselves, as well. It's something that would keep running indefinitely.
*shrug*
;-)
s _opp0 0.html
;-)
We're keeping an old conversation alive
I'd suggest looking at prices in other countries. My british cousin spend about 12 pence per text message; thats ~20 cents. Incoming calls are free, but her average rate for outgoing is about 10 pence. That's about 18 cents per minute.
Plus she pays an 6 pound monthly fee, which i feel is rather alot.
T-mobile UK rates: http://www.t-mobile.co.uk/Dispatcher?menuid=phone
O2 UK rates: http://www.o2.co.uk/personal/choosetariff/0,,111,
Keep in mind 1 pound = ~1.8 dollars
These prices are pretty representative of Europe; I just got back from UK, France, Holland.
I'm too lazy to find Japanese or S. Korean prices, but I've heard they are similar. I know first hand that cell phones in Africa and the Mid East (GSM, of course) are _vastly_ more expensive than here. I've been in Ethiopia, Egypt, Iran, and Dubai, and its _expensive_.
Our service is shitter. But we pay less for it
No, sorry.
9 .htm
I'm an Apple fan. I'm a Mac fan. This is being typed on my Powerbook G4.
Yes, the G4s suck. The G5s are significantly better, but not vastly so. The Athlon 64s still waxed the G5s performance wise: http://pcworld.about.com/magazine/2111p026id11274
Not to mention that the G5s run significantly hotter, and you can get an Athlon 64 in a notebook format. Apple still doesn't have a 64-bit notebook.
These dual-core iMacs smoke equivalent G5 iMacs if you are discussing multi-threaded applications. I also bet that system responsiveness is much higher when you are running several apps at the same time. Don't forget that iMacs have essentially 'crippiled' buses compared to powermacs and normal desktops.
And the MacBook Pro smokes the old powerbooks. A top-end G4 17" fully loaded runs World of Warcraft pretty slowly. Apparently, the lower MacBook Pro will run World of Warcraft, all visual features enabled, at 40-70 fps, which is truly fantastic. In fact, thats faster than my desktop, an Athlon 64 with a Geforce 6800, and a gig of ram.
The G5s are good at some tasks. At the high-end, water-cooled, with 4 cores, a G5 is a pretty fast machien.
A high-end, water-cooled 4 core Opteron will still crush it.
Similarly, importing 100 photos into iPhoto 6 took 35 percent less time on the Intel-based iMac, and exporting from iPhoto to a QuickTime movie took 25 percent less time. But exporting iPhoto images to a Web page took only 8 percent less time. And exporting those images to files actually took 9 percent more time on the Intel-based Macs.
Few of these tasks are processor bound. They are either bus, network, or harddisk bound.
Furthermore, I'd be curious as to the ability of these new iMacs to do two of these things at the same time, versus the old G5 iMac. Most people don't benchmark their machines, they run multiple apps at the same time, they listen to music while ripping CDs while exporting photos.
Dual processors (cores) are a tricky business. You need multiple threads or multiple apps to really see if there is a speedup, and few of these benchmarks even acknowledge that.
Not that I'm convinced this machine is a godsend, however, its easy to pick out the flaws in these intial benchmark's methodology.
Exactly.
Look at Pages and Keynote. Excellent end user experience, very, very poor file formats. Essentially dead ends.
*shrug*
Apple has priorities, I guess.
Political Jedi training?
Do I get a lightsaber??
And since I don't believe that we should be willing to waste $36,000 per year on their permanent incarceration, it's merely a matter of economic logic that they be disposed of. Personally, I'd harvest anything I could from them (organs, tissue, etc.) and give the proceeds to the victim's family but that's just me.
0 8&scid=7
It doesn't work that way. The death penalty costs quite a bit more than life incarceration.
http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/article.php?did=1
http://www.amnestyusa.org/abolish/cost.html
I have no moral "problems" with the idea of executing the guilty. My problem lies in the costs in doing so, and in the risks of executing the innocent. You'll need umpteen appeals, just in case someone is innocent, and the process of proving guilt to that degree is very expensive.
Better to throw someone in jail forever, so that they may emerge if they are innocent. Keep in mind people tend to sit on death row for 20-30 years anyways; at that point their crimes are so far in the past that I can't imagine the relatives of the victim really dwell on it.
That's a whole lot of heating being generated. Exhaust fan failure=lots of dead harddrives?
What about heat on the TV tuners? Or the video card?
Methinks one would be much better serviced by a rack of systems, this thing would run WAY too hot.
That is why Google's response is, "Hell No."
Google wants nothing to do with a pay-per-use internet, and little to do with a Google surcharge.
Google sells ads. Now, Google sells video, and Google sells software.
Google has no interest in being a telco.
Simple.
You go to video.google.com, and you get a message:
"Your current service provider's speeds are too slow to support Internet Video. Please consider one of the following companies as an upgrade to your internet service.
Please click HERE to use video.google.com with your unsupported service. Quality of Service not guaranteed with your inferior ISP.
Thanks for your patronage of Google!"
Hell, they could even make an isp.google.com, provide an API, and allow other content providers to do the same damn thing. ISP messing with your content? Throw a nasty proxy at them. You can bet that a "Google" certification process for ISPs that was pretty consumer friendly would be a pretty big deal.
Ahhh! More proof of evolution!
/flameproof suit on.
Obviously Women aren't Intelligently Designed. Huk-Huk!
If the current trends continue, and your children reveal what you've taught them to the school's administrators, expect to be arrested, and expect to go to jail for a long time.
The New "Republicans" don't believe in parental accountability. You raise Children the way the Rigth wants you to.
Yes, I'm sore about it.
Suggestion? Home schooling.
Yes. I thought that Republicans were supposed to be about personal accountability and especially about parental responsibility.
With Democrats, we get unneeded and excessive government involvement in our personal lives.
With Republicans, we get unneeded and excessive government involvement in our personal lives, along with unprecedented violations of civil rights and unbelievable corruption.
I was saddended yesterday by the Supreme Court's decision in the latest abortion case.
Why does no one see the irony in an administration that spouts off about, "A culture of respect for life in every stage", which then pushes for the death penalty for a wide range of crimes.
A defending freedom and liberty, while infringing our rights at every turn, and NOT limited to the realm of national security.
Hilariously, as a fairly old school conservative, the only policies of the Bush administration I can agree with was the supposed IRS reform bill (which never came), and the start of Iraq war 2 (which was our exit strategy from a 10-year announced war/bombing campaign). Both of these were botched miserably, and now we have the constitution figuratively on flames.
WhiteWolf666 an exBush supporter. All you new-school, "compassionate" "save the children" 'Republicans' can rot in hell.
P.S. last comment not directed at you, I'm just working on a new sig.
Illegally collected information cannot traditionally be used by the government in a court of law.
Of course, this no longer applies in matters of national security, or in drug enforcement cases.
Yes, I weep for our civil rights, as well.
WhiteWolf666A Bush Supporter turned Anti-Bush.
My keyboard may be dirty, yet---- I rarely get sick.
I'm a nerd. I sit here all day. Other than the 'yuck' factor, what's the problem? We live in a bacteria infested world, they outnumber us millions to one.
For those who _insist_ on a clean keyboard, stop fussing around with your damn "pry the keys off the keyboard". Either buy a plastic membrane that you can soak in disinfectant, or get a keyboard you can soak.
Like this one: http://www.grandtec.com/vik.htm
It's $40.00. I can't stand people whinning. Either sack up, and understand that keyboard (as well as Earth) are dirty, or spend the $40.00 and do it the easy way.
Stop bitching about, "I had to pry EACH and EVERY one of the keys OFF my keyboard! Heaven help me!"
I think you'd be surprised how quickly the U.S., Europe, Japan, Mexico, and South America would pick up the slack.
The boycott would not begin instantly; it would take to really come into effect. As this "boycott" came into existance, we'd buy more expensive products not produced in China.
Markets route around damage. We'd end up with a higher equilibrium price, but not a crippling one. Just about _any_ industry you can dream up can be built up enough to satisfy the entirety of Chinese production within 6 months or so. It'd be expensive; however it would _not_ be beyond the large American, Japanese, and European corporations budgets, and there are plenty of other places to build plants.
As someone who has conducted some amount of business in China, I can tell you its really not all that much cheaper, and our studies have determined that we could manufacture as cheaply as we do now, or even less, in either Africa or India.
Either way, in the long term we anticipate bringing production back to the U.S. We do some production here now, and our costs here are not rising nearly as fast as our costs overseas. Instability in China, a boycott in the industrialized world, or even a major hike in transport costs will bring manufacturing back to the U.S.
License it under GPLv3 :)
No, this is just another point in making telecos look bad.
http://blogs.zdnet.com/ip-telephony/?p=842
Why are the cable companies not doing this? Simple; it allows them to crush the telecos.
In my area, we've got 2 cable companies, and 2 telecos. You sign up for DSL/phone service? 2-4 weeks install time, 1 year minimum contract, you often pay per-minute local long distance charges, you pay for your equipment, and your telephone bill is guaranteed to be ~10% high than what you expect. You need customer service? They'll charge you if the tech steps inside your house. They'll charge you if the tech finds nothing wrong outside your house. And it'll take the tech a minimum of 2 weeks to get there.
You sign up for Cable/phone service? 1 week install time, max. Often next day service. I believe they even have a "20$ off your first bill if we don't install in 3 days" policy. No contract. Free equipment. Telephone service? All you can eat. Internet service? All you can eat. Before they will allow you to agree to service, they say, "Your first bill will be $X. All bills after that will be $Y. This rate is guaranteed till 2008. Do you accept?". Guess what; your bill will be exactly that price.
Need tech support? 3 days at the latest. Generally same day, if you call in the morning. Most techs will give you their personal cell number, and one tech is assigned to your property; if you ever need service again, you'll get the same tech.
And charge you for repairs? Hahahaha. Doesn't matter if its inside, or outside. We we're having connection problems. What does the cable company do? Run a new wire from the pole (~100 feet). Bury it for us. Run it into the house. Replace all the in house wiring (yes, inside the walls, thank god for straight shots, so they could snake it round). How much did this cost us? 0. It took 4 contractors to get the job done, too. That was a _job well done_ that deserved a tip (one of the few times I've tipped someone not out of politeness, but out of, "Holy shit, that guy did an amazing job.")
If you watch TV in my area, you see commercial after commercial where the cable companies tear into the telecos. They make fun of contracts. They make fun of shoddy service. They make fun of all these crazy random fees. Soon they'll make fun of this QoS stuff.
Having been on both sides of the fence, I have to admit they are pretty much dead on.
to let the POTS (broadly telephone) system rot.
We've got Cable, Fiber and Wireless, both local/intermediate (LAN WLAN), and long range (cell).
Cable's rolling out everwhere. Fiber is the future of telecom companies 'in-the-know' (not Bellsouth or SBC). Wireless is easily deployable by small ISP, and Cell technology can currently handle ALL our phone needs, and will be able to handle quite a few data needs in the near future.
Tell me again why we need the old fashioned copper telephone companies again?
Competition is a beautiful thing. The FCC should let these companies strangle themselves, while the rest of the providers out there should use this as yet another selling point versus the bells.
I dunno; at least the Cable companies(yes, plural) in my area heavily advertise about all the fees/micropayments with phone companies, and sell every one of their services as 'all-you-can-eat' (phone, cable, internet), with stable pricing. This means they tell you what your monthly bill will be, taxes etc. . . included, before you sign up.
The only areas in which this is not the solution is areas with geographical monopolies. In those areas, the local utility commission need to slap the local telephone company, or make a nice deal with an alternative carrier. Either that, or roll out a community network. Or invite Google to do so, tax free, with various other incentives.
*shrug* This is a nonissue, unless Bellsouth is your only choice. Vote with your dollar, people. Change providers! Not when they implement it, change _now_.