I have speakeasy and I'll agree, it rocks. Problem is, the recent FCC ruling that allows Derizon to charge what they want (not at cost) to Covad and other ILECs has me a bit worried. I don't know how much longer my Speakeasy link will remain.
To Derizon's credit (sorta) at least they're now offering business class service that has a static IP and server hosting is allowed on the link.
I'm sure the service is unreliable and support is worse, but before you couldn't even get a static IP for your DSL connection. However, that doesn't mean I'll be switching anytime soon.
Any computer can have proper color calibration. ColorSync isn't the magic that all make it out to be. If you aren't calibrating your monitor using something like a ColorVision Spyder puck and software then you're never going to have accurate colors, regardless of platform. I'm a Mac user, but I know that Apple's ColorSync ain't gonna save my arse no matter what. Same for a PC.
Without a hardware-based color calibration setup you're just flying blind, regardless of platform.
Not true everywhere in the USA. I belive that in Massachusets you are required to retreat from your home, and may only use deadly force if the perp comes after you or if you cannot escape
I believe that even here, in the People's Republic of Taxachusetts this idea has been repealed by somebody with a functioning brain cell. But this is the state that still requires all martial arts black belts to register as the shod foot of a black belted martial arts practitioner is considered a deadly weapon. But I think this law is a holdover from a long time ago and is not enforced.
To the responders of my initial post: Thanks for the clarification. While my knowledge of the GPL is not *nil* I'm also not a GPL zealot. I can certainly see how one might interpret free in the way the author of the article has (regardless of whether I may or may not agree with it).
The same is true of BSD. Consider its licensing policies versus Linux, for example. When code is licensed under the GNU General Public License or GPL (as is Linux), the license effectively eliminates any financial rewards anyone -- whether an individual or a corporation -- might hope to gain from improving upon it. It does this by compelling an author who uses any part of the code to give up the right to charge a license fee for the finished product.
Now, it's been a while since I've read the GPL, but last time I checked, it's possible to charge whatever you want for GPL'ed software. But you have to give the source away for free. The use of the word 'effective' in this passage sort of skirts the issue, but the author then goes on to state that the BSDL is 'truly free' b/c it allows corporations to charge money for code developed with BSD-based source.
While not free (as in beer or speech) ThinkFree Office is an alternative to Office.X. And it's only US$50. Of course, it's quite slow (Java-based) but it supports the MS file formats that I've thrown at it (Word and Excel v.X) and is quite stable. Of course, I've already sold my soul to Office.X but ThinkFree Office *is* a decent alternative.
This actually might be a good thing in terms of being able to get an alternate ISP over DSL. As it stands now, the thick-headed a-holes at the FCC think broadband competition is cable vs. DSL. But if I get DSL, I'm most likely stuck with Verizon.net. Though right now I've got Covad/Speakeasy (and they rock), the recent ruling with the FCC means that they can be shut off by Verizon quite quickly if Verizon wants to play that game (and I'm pretty sure they do). So then I'm stuck with crappy ATTBI cable with no alternate ISP or Verizon DSL. Hell, I'd even be willing to pay Verizon some small loop charge (say $30/month) if I could pick my own ISP (with an additional charge). As long as I don't have Verizon's crappy ISP service (which no doubt matches their phone service).
So I guess what I'm saying is that yes, individuals may very well take this action as a good thing and start suing the RBOCs for opening up their DSL to other ISPs (even if we have to use the RBOCs for just the local loop). This also might be a good thing for those looking to get into opening up cable lines to alternate ISPs.
It's just a thought (but right now I'm suffering from sleep deprivation, so it might be a dream).
First off... I'm not a Linux fanatic. The right tool for the right job is my way of thinking. When I'm doing image editing at home with my photography I use a Mac. It's just the easiest way to go. When I want to work on the ASICs I design, give me a Linux/UNIX/whatever box.
Now, while I'm by no means a veteran, six years of design experience in the ASIC industry has given me the knowledge that Sun is going to way of the dinosaur in ASIC design houses. Perhaps in the big corporate sites this might be different. But my current and past employers are both soon or currently replacing (actually supplanting) all their Sun boxes with Athlons. Performance isn't even close to comparable (Athlon wins) and price isn't even close. We can set up a farm of 10-12 Linux boxes with greater performance than a couple of Ultra 80s (SMP). There's no point in getting a Sun box.
So, perhaps my initial comments were off the mark a bit (as are yours). But EDA/ASIC was formerly a big stronghold for Sun. It won't be for much longer.
I'm talking about EDA tools. Synopsys has ported their entire suite to Linux (i.e., Design Compiler, VCS, PrimeTime, CoverMeter, etc.) and Cadence is well on their way. As for full signoff tools (like venduh place and route tools), I'm not certain. But I do know that for development and verification nobody is buying more Sun boxes - they're buying farms and farms of Athlon boxes. You need the multiple boxes for verification - the final backend signoff stuff can be run on a single high-powered box without too much problem.
Sun is now realizing that they don't have a snowball's chance in hell in growing for much longer. With a lot of their core businesses moving to the Linux platform they need to keep up with the herd. In the EDA/ASIC field everybody is moving to x86 and Linux. Now that Synopsys has ported tools to Linux there's no reason to buy a $4000 Ultra 10 P.O.S. when you can get an Athlon XP 2000+ for $800 and get 2x-4x the performance. I was asked by a friend-of-a-friend (who happened to be a Sun salesdroid) what I thought of Sun boxes. I told him straight that Linux was going to crush them in the EDA market. He didn't like my answer too much. But the fact is that Sun is becoming more and more of niche player and I find it hard to believe that that is going to change any unless they find ways of building cheaper boxes with better performance.
Prototyping sounds like a handy thing to do. There's a Quickturn spinoff that does something like that by putting some FPGA boards in a Sun workstation. But their entry price is something like US$700k as I recall. I can't remember the name of the company though.
As for the other environment issues - since I've just started there I can't give you specifics since I'm still learning the C++ RTL, let alone the big picture of the formal verification.
As for $20k for VCS, I'm not sure what our licencing terms are for it. But you're right, I'm sure it's quite a bit more than $20k now that I think about it. Given that Design Compiler is $100k a license why would VCS be much cheaper.
It's actually funny because three or four years ago I worked for a company that was being cheap so they bought one or two VCS licenses and six or so VCSi licenses. The difference: VCSi would put random wait delays of varying length in the simulation that merely slowed things down. And slow sims down it did. I used to see 45 minute delays in the middle of the sim. Rather annoying when it's 9:00pm at night and you want to go home but can't until the sim results come out. And for that we paid somewhere around $15-$20k. Such a deal!
It's funny that there's a lot of talk about which HDL to use. The company that I just started working for is now using C++ to simulate and design ASICs. And we're talking about 8 Million+ gate designs (it's a volume rendering chip). Verilog and VHDL simulate like dogs on any platform. Here, they've written their own tools and use a very strained version of C++ (which compiles nicely using g++ on any platform) and spits out waveform files to be used with viewers like VirSim and SignalScan.
The gist of this is that the HDL world might be moving more towards C++ and away from Verilog due to the increase in simulation performance. The CRTL that we code is more like RTL (register transfer language) rather than abstracted/software-only C++, but it simulates 4-5 times faster on a 2GHz P4 (under Linux, hurrah) than Verilog. Plus, Verilog simulators that any reputable semiconductor-house will signoff with cost US$20k per license (or more).
Of course, the down side is that for now, we still have to run Perl scripts that translate the C++ to Verilog which is then synthesized using Synopsys (and simulated using VCS for sanity). But as things move forward, don't be surprised to see companies like Synopsys and groups like the IEEE moving to coming up with some way of writing RTL in C++ and synthesizing directly.
I certainly agree that that statement is very scary. But I think the thrust of that statement (and I could be very wrong) is that kids who look like they are headed down the wrong path will be given more attention and education to steer them away from a 'life of crime'. That's not something I disagree with. Education is the path to salvation. However, given human nature (and brainless twits that occupy political offices around the world) this could very well just turn into "Oh, you're going to be bad, we need to lock you away." It's a thin line.
This is definitely true in the UNIX world still. Not just Oracle. A *lot* of EDA tools for ASIC design require annual 'maintenence' contracts in addition to the initial licence fee. Synopsys is somewhere around $100k a license, plus $25k/year in 'maintenence'. Of course, if you're having trouble, you can generally get a field engineer (who, low and behold, will possess a degree in engineering from an accredited school) to help you out. But it still is exhorbitant. There far more egregious (sic) examples in terms of the maintenence fee - not the price, Synopsys has just about everyone beat on that, but in terms of what you get. Sometimes you pay the fee but get *no* support. So Microsoft's turn is nothing new. It's just new to the commodity software world.
I don't think that was the main trust of the argument though. The issue is that in the future as software becomes more and more subscription based you're going to see ads pop up on your favorite (non-open-source) desktop. And as more entertainment comes online and movies become streaming rather than rental, and with the convergence of more computing power in the home entertainment system Microsoft will begin to see that it (and AOL/Time-Warner among others) is the new form of TV.
You don't think they'll pad the bottom line by charging for ads? Ads targeted specifically at you since they now know what software you run, when you run it, how late you stay up, how much pr0n you download (if applicable), where you trade, how much you use eBay, and so on. It's all open-season. That coupled with the poor saps that will be forced to use Passport with Windows XP, you've got some ripe privacy violations just waiting to happen (not to mention terrific targeted marketing to sell).
One of the biggest issues might be fabrication costs as somebody else has pointed out. The bigger issue is finding a simulator and synthesis tool to do the job for less than current costs. I think more effort should go into Open Source simulators so that you don't have the minimum ~$5000 entry price (from Fintronic). Forget about synthesis. Tools from Synopsys cost upwards of $100k a license. If I knew how to write C and pure software I'd think about writing those tools. But for now I'm working full time designing ASICs.
FPGAs are an alternative, but still not that cheap and they too have their drawbacks. Ever tried routing one so that all the registers get their data on time? Not very fun. Ever tried pushing one past 50MHz without having to pay $1000 a chip? (If my knowledge on the current state of FPGAs is incorrect, somebody please correct me.)
If you have a small design, yes, you can use an FPGA. As a matter of fact, it's a neat idea. Too bad simulators cost so much (that $5000 thing, though Altera and Xylinx tools might be cheaper). If you want high-volume - another poster correctly stated - $250k NRE (non-recurring engineering) charge just to set up, plus a per-unit charge for each ASIC (usually a couple of hundred dollars).
Don't think that it's all that easy. In some ways Open Source could probably help - on a module level. As in, hey, I just wrote a really cool, high speed SDRAM controller. But on a full-chip level I think you'll find that it's a bit more difficult.
This might sound fine in principle, but given then history of unions harrassing scabs and management I don't think this will happen. Courts in this country have more or less made it possible for unions to do almost anything but kill to defend their position. Quite frankly, I don't want somebody from union hassling me every day b/c I want to get paid more than him for knowing more and working harder. Unions are monopolies on labor and *should* be considered a trust. I have yet to see much or any proof (and maybe I haven't looked hard enough) where those that work hard get the recognition they deserve. With unions the pay will always be lowest common denominator and the idea of bargaining for your own skills will go right down the tubes.
It's just not worth it for tech workers - the field is too competitive to lose the money b/c some old guy who's still looking for the Any Key has been in the job longer.
The biggest issue here is that enforcement will be done with the DMCA. What's really needed is a concerted effort, with a very high profile, to post a constitutional challenge to the DMCA. Not like the DeCSS case, but an actual challenge by a _HUGE_ number of organizations (so that the media won't be able to cover it up) like the ACLU and EFF (among others). It's the DMCA that's the problem. And with that fetid pile of crap being held as law ridiculous copy protection schemes are just going to proliferate.
The patent is still bogus (though I'm sure you probably already knew that). ASIC designers have been using both edges of a clock for quite a loooonnnng time. Is Rambus now going to sue ASIC houses as well? Why is using posedge and negedge clocks in SDRAM any more trivial than using them in an ASIC? I certainly don't know of any patents filed for ASICs using both clocks. Or microprocessors for that matter. Or PALs, or FPGAs, or organgutans, or breakfast cereals, or lima bean...
It's just a ridiculous patent (shock - a stupid patent passed by the USPTO!) from a ridiculous company.
At the very least, write to them letting them know your concern. Do you have the option for RCN? In Somerville you can choose both if you want - and get all services. I don't know if they're any better, but at least they aren't Verizon or AT&T. I've been waiting for the lazy arses at Verizon to qual my line for DSL so Covad can come in. But who knows when that'll be finished. I was thinking about getting MediaOne in the meantime but after this mess, I think I'll look into other options.
Slamming is illegal regardless of the transmission media (coax or twisted pair, etc.). I say screw AT&T to the wall.
Slashdot Mirror
I have speakeasy and I'll agree, it rocks. Problem is, the recent FCC ruling that allows Derizon to charge what they want (not at cost) to Covad and other ILECs has me a bit worried. I don't know how much longer my Speakeasy link will remain.
To Derizon's credit (sorta) at least they're now offering business class service that has a static IP and server hosting is allowed on the link.
I'm sure the service is unreliable and support is worse, but before you couldn't even get a static IP for your DSL connection. However, that doesn't mean I'll be switching anytime soon.
Any computer can have proper color calibration. ColorSync isn't the magic that all make it out to be. If you aren't calibrating your monitor using something like a ColorVision Spyder puck and software then you're never going to have accurate colors, regardless of platform. I'm a Mac user, but I know that Apple's ColorSync ain't gonna save my arse no matter what. Same for a PC.
Without a hardware-based color calibration setup you're just flying blind, regardless of platform.
I believe that even here, in the People's Republic of Taxachusetts this idea has been repealed by somebody with a functioning brain cell. But this is the state that still requires all martial arts black belts to register as the shod foot of a black belted martial arts practitioner is considered a deadly weapon. But I think this law is a holdover from a long time ago and is not enforced.
To the responders of my initial post: Thanks for the clarification. While my knowledge of the GPL is not *nil* I'm also not a GPL zealot. I can certainly see how one might interpret free in the way the author of the article has (regardless of whether I may or may not agree with it).
Now, it's been a while since I've read the GPL, but last time I checked, it's possible to charge whatever you want for GPL'ed software. But you have to give the source away for free. The use of the word 'effective' in this passage sort of skirts the issue, but the author then goes on to state that the BSDL is 'truly free' b/c it allows corporations to charge money for code developed with BSD-based source.
Is the author an ex-MS employee or just confused?
While not free (as in beer or speech) ThinkFree Office is an alternative to Office.X. And it's only US$50. Of course, it's quite slow (Java-based) but it supports the MS file formats that I've thrown at it (Word and Excel v.X) and is quite stable. Of course, I've already sold my soul to Office.X but ThinkFree Office *is* a decent alternative.
"In this house we obey the laws of Thermodynamics!"
- Homer J. Simpson
This actually might be a good thing in terms of being able to get an alternate ISP over DSL. As it stands now, the thick-headed a-holes at the FCC think broadband competition is cable vs. DSL. But if I get DSL, I'm most likely stuck with Verizon.net. Though right now I've got Covad/Speakeasy (and they rock), the recent ruling with the FCC means that they can be shut off by Verizon quite quickly if Verizon wants to play that game (and I'm pretty sure they do). So then I'm stuck with crappy ATTBI cable with no alternate ISP or Verizon DSL. Hell, I'd even be willing to pay Verizon some small loop charge (say $30/month) if I could pick my own ISP (with an additional charge). As long as I don't have Verizon's crappy ISP service (which no doubt matches their phone service).
So I guess what I'm saying is that yes, individuals may very well take this action as a good thing and start suing the RBOCs for opening up their DSL to other ISPs (even if we have to use the RBOCs for just the local loop). This also might be a good thing for those looking to get into opening up cable lines to alternate ISPs.
It's just a thought (but right now I'm suffering from sleep deprivation, so it might be a dream).
Boh! :)
Magnetbox, Sorny, and Panaphonic.
For those countries sticking with MS products:
Would you like to try this great, flexible, free software? Or how about this closed, expensive buggy software with 'lettuce'?
Subject obviously prefers software with 'lettuce'.
First off... I'm not a Linux fanatic. The right tool for the right job is my way of thinking. When I'm doing image editing at home with my photography I use a Mac. It's just the easiest way to go. When I want to work on the ASICs I design, give me a Linux/UNIX/whatever box.
Now, while I'm by no means a veteran, six years of design experience in the ASIC industry has given me the knowledge that Sun is going to way of the dinosaur in ASIC design houses. Perhaps in the big corporate sites this might be different. But my current and past employers are both soon or currently replacing (actually supplanting) all their Sun boxes with Athlons. Performance isn't even close to comparable (Athlon wins) and price isn't even close. We can set up a farm of 10-12 Linux boxes with greater performance than a couple of Ultra 80s (SMP). There's no point in getting a Sun box.
So, perhaps my initial comments were off the mark a bit (as are yours). But EDA/ASIC was formerly a big stronghold for Sun. It won't be for much longer.
I'm talking about EDA tools. Synopsys has ported their entire suite to Linux (i.e., Design Compiler, VCS, PrimeTime, CoverMeter, etc.) and Cadence is well on their way. As for full signoff tools (like venduh place and route tools), I'm not certain. But I do know that for development and verification nobody is buying more Sun boxes - they're buying farms and farms of Athlon boxes. You need the multiple boxes for verification - the final backend signoff stuff can be run on a single high-powered box without too much problem.
Sun is now realizing that they don't have a snowball's chance in hell in growing for much longer. With a lot of their core businesses moving to the Linux platform they need to keep up with the herd. In the EDA/ASIC field everybody is moving to x86 and Linux. Now that Synopsys has ported tools to Linux there's no reason to buy a $4000 Ultra 10 P.O.S. when you can get an Athlon XP 2000+ for $800 and get 2x-4x the performance. I was asked by a friend-of-a-friend (who happened to be a Sun salesdroid) what I thought of Sun boxes. I told him straight that Linux was going to crush them in the EDA market. He didn't like my answer too much. But the fact is that Sun is becoming more and more of niche player and I find it hard to believe that that is going to change any unless they find ways of building cheaper boxes with better performance.
Or C-Port/Motorola.
Prototyping sounds like a handy thing to do. There's a Quickturn spinoff that does something like that by putting some FPGA boards in a Sun workstation. But their entry price is something like US$700k as I recall. I can't remember the name of the company though.
As for the other environment issues - since I've just started there I can't give you specifics since I'm still learning the C++ RTL, let alone the big picture of the formal verification.
As for $20k for VCS, I'm not sure what our licencing terms are for it. But you're right, I'm sure it's quite a bit more than $20k now that I think about it. Given that Design Compiler is $100k a license why would VCS be much cheaper.
It's actually funny because three or four years ago I worked for a company that was being cheap so they bought one or two VCS licenses and six or so VCSi licenses. The difference: VCSi would put random wait delays of varying length in the simulation that merely slowed things down. And slow sims down it did. I used to see 45 minute delays in the middle of the sim. Rather annoying when it's 9:00pm at night and you want to go home but can't until the sim results come out. And for that we paid somewhere around $15-$20k. Such a deal!
It's funny that there's a lot of talk about which HDL to use. The company that I just started working for is now using C++ to simulate and design ASICs. And we're talking about 8 Million+ gate designs (it's a volume rendering chip). Verilog and VHDL simulate like dogs on any platform. Here, they've written their own tools and use a very strained version of C++ (which compiles nicely using g++ on any platform) and spits out waveform files to be used with viewers like VirSim and SignalScan.
The gist of this is that the HDL world might be moving more towards C++ and away from Verilog due to the increase in simulation performance. The CRTL that we code is more like RTL (register transfer language) rather than abstracted/software-only C++, but it simulates 4-5 times faster on a 2GHz P4 (under Linux, hurrah) than Verilog. Plus, Verilog simulators that any reputable semiconductor-house will signoff with cost US$20k per license (or more).
Of course, the down side is that for now, we still have to run Perl scripts that translate the C++ to Verilog which is then synthesized using Synopsys (and simulated using VCS for sanity). But as things move forward, don't be surprised to see companies like Synopsys and groups like the IEEE moving to coming up with some way of writing RTL in C++ and synthesizing directly.
I certainly agree that that statement is very scary. But I think the thrust of that statement (and I could be very wrong) is that kids who look like they are headed down the wrong path will be given more attention and education to steer them away from a 'life of crime'. That's not something I disagree with. Education is the path to salvation. However, given human nature (and brainless twits that occupy political offices around the world) this could very well just turn into "Oh, you're going to be bad, we need to lock you away." It's a thin line.
This is definitely true in the UNIX world still. Not just Oracle. A *lot* of EDA tools for ASIC design require annual 'maintenence' contracts in addition to the initial licence fee. Synopsys is somewhere around $100k a license, plus $25k/year in 'maintenence'. Of course, if you're having trouble, you can generally get a field engineer (who, low and behold, will possess a degree in engineering from an accredited school) to help you out. But it still is exhorbitant. There far more egregious (sic) examples in terms of the maintenence fee - not the price, Synopsys has just about everyone beat on that, but in terms of what you get. Sometimes you pay the fee but get *no* support. So Microsoft's turn is nothing new. It's just new to the commodity software world.
I don't think that was the main trust of the argument though. The issue is that in the future as software becomes more and more subscription based you're going to see ads pop up on your favorite (non-open-source) desktop. And as more entertainment comes online and movies become streaming rather than rental, and with the convergence of more computing power in the home entertainment system Microsoft will begin to see that it (and AOL/Time-Warner among others) is the new form of TV.
You don't think they'll pad the bottom line by charging for ads? Ads targeted specifically at you since they now know what software you run, when you run it, how late you stay up, how much pr0n you download (if applicable), where you trade, how much you use eBay, and so on. It's all open-season. That coupled with the poor saps that will be forced to use Passport with Windows XP, you've got some ripe privacy violations just waiting to happen (not to mention terrific targeted marketing to sell).
One of the biggest issues might be fabrication costs as somebody else has pointed out. The bigger issue is finding a simulator and synthesis tool to do the job for less than current costs. I think more effort should go into Open Source simulators so that you don't have the minimum ~$5000 entry price (from Fintronic). Forget about synthesis. Tools from Synopsys cost upwards of $100k a license. If I knew how to write C and pure software I'd think about writing those tools. But for now I'm working full time designing ASICs.
FPGAs are an alternative, but still not that cheap and they too have their drawbacks. Ever tried routing one so that all the registers get their data on time? Not very fun. Ever tried pushing one past 50MHz without having to pay $1000 a chip? (If my knowledge on the current state of FPGAs is incorrect, somebody please correct me.)
If you have a small design, yes, you can use an FPGA. As a matter of fact, it's a neat idea. Too bad simulators cost so much (that $5000 thing, though Altera and Xylinx tools might be cheaper). If you want high-volume - another poster correctly stated - $250k NRE (non-recurring engineering) charge just to set up, plus a per-unit charge for each ASIC (usually a couple of hundred dollars).
Don't think that it's all that easy. In some ways Open Source could probably help - on a module level. As in, hey, I just wrote a really cool, high speed SDRAM controller. But on a full-chip level I think you'll find that it's a bit more difficult.
This might sound fine in principle, but given then history of unions harrassing scabs and management I don't think this will happen. Courts in this country have more or less made it possible for unions to do almost anything but kill to defend their position. Quite frankly, I don't want somebody from union hassling me every day b/c I want to get paid more than him for knowing more and working harder. Unions are monopolies on labor and *should* be considered a trust. I have yet to see much or any proof (and maybe I haven't looked hard enough) where those that work hard get the recognition they deserve. With unions the pay will always be lowest common denominator and the idea of bargaining for your own skills will go right down the tubes.
It's just not worth it for tech workers - the field is too competitive to lose the money b/c some old guy who's still looking for the Any Key has been in the job longer.
The biggest issue here is that enforcement will be done with the DMCA. What's really needed is a concerted effort, with a very high profile, to post a constitutional challenge to the DMCA. Not like the DeCSS case, but an actual challenge by a _HUGE_ number of organizations (so that the media won't be able to cover it up) like the ACLU and EFF (among others). It's the DMCA that's the problem. And with that fetid pile of crap being held as law ridiculous copy protection schemes are just going to proliferate.
That certainly would explain Jerry Springer. :)
The patent is still bogus (though I'm sure you probably already knew that). ASIC designers have been using both edges of a clock for quite a loooonnnng time. Is Rambus now going to sue ASIC houses as well? Why is using posedge and negedge clocks in SDRAM any more trivial than using them in an ASIC? I certainly don't know of any patents filed for ASICs using both clocks. Or microprocessors for that matter. Or PALs, or FPGAs, or organgutans, or breakfast cereals, or lima bean...
It's just a ridiculous patent (shock - a stupid patent passed by the USPTO!) from a ridiculous company.
At the very least, write to them letting them know your concern. Do you have the option for RCN? In Somerville you can choose both if you want - and get all services. I don't know if they're any better, but at least they aren't Verizon or AT&T. I've been waiting for the lazy arses at Verizon to qual my line for DSL so Covad can come in. But who knows when that'll be finished. I was thinking about getting MediaOne in the meantime but after this mess, I think I'll look into other options.
Slamming is illegal regardless of the transmission media (coax or twisted pair, etc.). I say screw AT&T to the wall.