i have family on comcast and they never complained i've had problems on time warner. get a new dociss 3 modem for the better error correction for old wiring. get all your stuff off wifi and onto cat 5. especially if your neighbors have wifi. i used to get disconnected from netflix and xbox live all the time on wifi. switched to cat5 and it's like night and day
i don't live in a house of couch potatoes i take my kids outside i like to read a lot of books. last year i read about 10,000 pages worth my wife only watches a few reality shows on TV i mostly watch sports and my kids will watch a few hours of TV max. mostly in the morning while i still sleep and at night when i want to sit and relax
if you have 5 netflix streams at one time maybe you are watching too much TV? its like the "advanced" smartphone users who use 10GB a month and think they are geniuses. all they do is stream video/music and are nothing more than digital couch potatoes
and last year comcast spent $7 billion on capital upgrades what's your point? they spent almost $20 billion to pay for all the TV shows on their service. they spent $2.5 billion paying debt they took on to build out their network
when cable internet first started it was less than 1mbps. now its 100mbps over the same wires.
i'm 40 and have seen the internet grow up and settle for the cheaper plans. i'm at 20/2 now
why do i need to pay for super fast internet? its an upselling scam since the peering pipes can't support all the traffic there is nothing out there that needs 100mbps access. netflix is like 5-10mbps. same with itunes. HBO Go looks awesome on my connection. most websites are on AWS oversubscribed cloud virtualized servers and circuits i still buy blu rays because they look better buying cheap access from an ISP that allows the content to install CDN's on their network will be a lot faster than being upsold to some crazy speed you only see on a speedtest
NYC there are no franchises and the two cable companies have different areas carved out. with FIOS in parts as well. no one will build in the other's area because by the time you lay the wire and run the marketing promotion, you won't make any money
it will never improve and here is why. if an area has a choice of cable/internet providers they will always be running marketing promotions to steal each other's customers. a person can simply move back and forth since the product is the same and a commodity. at some point one of them will go under. happened in every previous situation like this
RCN tried to compete in the northeast and failed. its expensive to build out a network. the content people want a lot of money for the content. Comcast pays 1/3 of revenues to buy the content for their TV service. its the internet and upselling fast access that is making their profits. and in the end people have no reason to move unless the price is cheaper. and there is no way you can make a profit in this business if you are spending 1/3 of your revenues trying to attract customers
as it is now, you have to ask every hick town for permission to lay cable and allow them to extort you via yarn museums and other costs george bush tried to pass national franchise rights but it was fought by all the hick towns who keep taxes artificially low and leech off everyone else. and when telecoms refuse to pay, people there whine how they are underserved
and contrary to populist belief, the telecoms spend billions of $$$ every year in capital expenses. and they borrow to do so. comcast is $44 billion in debt. Time warner is $25 billion in debt. AT&T is also carrying some insane debt from its idiotic shopping spree almost 15 years ago to become a cable company. back then it cost almost $100 billion. its all in the public financial statements they file. they might not have FTTH, but cable and telecoms have spent tens of billions if not hundreds of billions of $$$ over the last 20 years building out their networks and the bill is now due. meanwhile newcomers like google have no debt and lots of cash and can invest a lot of money into FTTH and other ventures.
not being evil, just a fact of life. it has happened before and it will happen again. wintel beat IBM. and now IOS/Android/ARM/Qualcomm is beating wintel. AT&T and then the baby bells built out an amazing PSTN network and the cable companies came in with unlimited local and long distance calling to steal the customers. railroads built out a national rail network and the airlines and cars came in to steal their profits as well
and at this point comcast lets anyone install a CDN on their network if you pay the fees for the traffic some companies like netflix are leeches and want to dump a lot of traffic onto others' networks without any sort of agreement or negotiation and expect them to upgrade their networks just so netflix can make all the profits
i work in the same building with a huge Tommy Hilfiger presence and always see people talking on their cellphones in a corner about what they do at their job
9/11 happened because in the 80's the US was complete pussies and never struck back against the terrorists you could blow up a plane and nothing will happen to you having US military kill terrorists is what we should have been doing in the 80's
in the USA and yes, most of the attacks were directed against americans the marine barracks the american killed on the cruise ship the night club in germany pan am flight 103 some TWA flight where 4 americans were killed because they were americans WTC bombing in the 90's USS Cole the embassy bombings
as someone who grew up in the 80's with constant real terror attacks, its not a fear 9/11 was the largest attack in a long string of attacks against the USA for the previous 20 years
the only reason i have 20/2 is for netflix and youtube. the latter being the most educational, but the educational videos can be played on slower speeds everything else would work with under 10mbps internet wikipedia doesn't need 1gbps and that's the most educational site there is
there is only one reason for fast internet and that's to make you spend more money buying on impulse. 1gpbs you can buy that movie NOW instead of waiting for the blu ray. or get that PS4 game NOW instead of driving to gamestop or best buy or waiting on amazon
lots of terror attacks in the 80's in the 90's we had the WTC bombing, the USS Cole and the embassy bombings. hundreds dead 2001 we had 9/11 and after that nothing
so you figure the new security and intel collection stopped at least a few attacks, which now means since there were no attacks all this is a waste of money
small businesses are the ones who should be buying ads through social media regional TV is still too expensive for a small business like a restaurant or a club you buy followers on twitter and facebook and update the streams for your fans
google is in the business of making money, like every other company in america. in fact google has higher profit margins than almost every other greedy and evil corp as branded by slashdotters and netizens
going into well served areas means a lot of potentially angry customers who can't wait to switch
this is 2014 put everything on wifi with a few dozen of your neighbors and then blame the ISP for every hiccup
i used to have xbox live disconnect when playing single player. put everything on cat5 and most of my problems magically vanished.
Wifi is like the old Layer 1 networks. everyone is broadcasting all their traffic into the air around you and your router and devices are trying to filter it out. that's why it keeps disconnecting
you are probably doing comcast a favor torrenting a show once and then watching it from your local copy is better for them than streaming the same show multiple times from netflix
Slashdot Mirror
i have family on comcast and they never complained
i've had problems on time warner. get a new dociss 3 modem for the better error correction for old wiring. get all your stuff off wifi and onto cat 5. especially if your neighbors have wifi. i used to get disconnected from netflix and xbox live all the time on wifi. switched to cat5 and it's like night and day
i don't live in a house of couch potatoes
i take my kids outside
i like to read a lot of books. last year i read about 10,000 pages worth
my wife only watches a few reality shows on TV
i mostly watch sports and my kids will watch a few hours of TV max. mostly in the morning while i still sleep and at night when i want to sit and relax
if you have 5 netflix streams at one time maybe you are watching too much TV? its like the "advanced" smartphone users who use 10GB a month and think they are geniuses. all they do is stream video/music and are nothing more than digital couch potatoes
or they live a person per mile and it would cost tens of thousands of $$$ just to wire their one home.
why pay for faster internet when i can just buy more blu rays? or pay for cable TV to watch the same shows?
that's like paying for gas for a SUV when i can just buy a more efficient car
and last year comcast spent $7 billion on capital upgrades
what's your point? they spent almost $20 billion to pay for all the TV shows on their service. they spent $2.5 billion paying debt they took on to build out their network
when cable internet first started it was less than 1mbps. now its 100mbps over the same wires.
really? time warner cable has to share wires due to a merger years ago and earthlink is more expensive than going straight through TWC
with DSL it was artificially low prices to grab customers
i'm 40 and have seen the internet grow up and settle for the cheaper plans. i'm at 20/2 now
why do i need to pay for super fast internet?
its an upselling scam since the peering pipes can't support all the traffic
there is nothing out there that needs 100mbps access. netflix is like 5-10mbps. same with itunes. HBO Go looks awesome on my connection. most websites are on AWS oversubscribed cloud virtualized servers and circuits
i still buy blu rays because they look better
buying cheap access from an ISP that allows the content to install CDN's on their network will be a lot faster than being upsold to some crazy speed you only see on a speedtest
what exactly am i missing without fast internet?
NYC there are no franchises and the two cable companies have different areas carved out. with FIOS in parts as well. no one will build in the other's area because by the time you lay the wire and run the marketing promotion, you won't make any money
it will never improve and here is why. if an area has a choice of cable/internet providers they will always be running marketing promotions to steal each other's customers. a person can simply move back and forth since the product is the same and a commodity. at some point one of them will go under. happened in every previous situation like this
RCN tried to compete in the northeast and failed. its expensive to build out a network. the content people want a lot of money for the content. Comcast pays 1/3 of revenues to buy the content for their TV service. its the internet and upselling fast access that is making their profits. and in the end people have no reason to move unless the price is cheaper. and there is no way you can make a profit in this business if you are spending 1/3 of your revenues trying to attract customers
as it is now, you have to ask every hick town for permission to lay cable and allow them to extort you via yarn museums and other costs
george bush tried to pass national franchise rights but it was fought by all the hick towns who keep taxes artificially low and leech off everyone else. and when telecoms refuse to pay, people there whine how they are underserved
and contrary to populist belief, the telecoms spend billions of $$$ every year in capital expenses. and they borrow to do so. comcast is $44 billion in debt. Time warner is $25 billion in debt. AT&T is also carrying some insane debt from its idiotic shopping spree almost 15 years ago to become a cable company. back then it cost almost $100 billion. its all in the public financial statements they file. they might not have FTTH, but cable and telecoms have spent tens of billions if not hundreds of billions of $$$ over the last 20 years building out their networks and the bill is now due. meanwhile newcomers like google have no debt and lots of cash and can invest a lot of money into FTTH and other ventures.
not being evil, just a fact of life. it has happened before and it will happen again. wintel beat IBM. and now IOS/Android/ARM/Qualcomm is beating wintel. AT&T and then the baby bells built out an amazing PSTN network and the cable companies came in with unlimited local and long distance calling to steal the customers. railroads built out a national rail network and the airlines and cars came in to steal their profits as well
and at this point comcast lets anyone install a CDN on their network if you pay the fees for the traffic
some companies like netflix are leeches and want to dump a lot of traffic onto others' networks without any sort of agreement or negotiation and expect them to upgrade their networks just so netflix can make all the profits
Im not buying a half dozen boxes and subscribing to their services just to get all the exclusive content
i work in the same building with a huge Tommy Hilfiger presence and always see people talking on their cellphones in a corner about what they do at their job
9/11 happened because in the 80's the US was complete pussies and never struck back against the terrorists
you could blow up a plane and nothing will happen to you
having US military kill terrorists is what we should have been doing in the 80's
in the USA and yes, most of the attacks were directed against americans
the marine barracks
the american killed on the cruise ship
the night club in germany
pan am flight 103
some TWA flight where 4 americans were killed because they were americans
WTC bombing in the 90's
USS Cole
the embassy bombings
as someone who grew up in the 80's with constant real terror attacks, its not a fear
9/11 was the largest attack in a long string of attacks against the USA for the previous 20 years
the only reason i have 20/2 is for netflix and youtube. the latter being the most educational, but the educational videos can be played on slower speeds
everything else would work with under 10mbps internet
wikipedia doesn't need 1gbps and that's the most educational site there is
there is only one reason for fast internet and that's to make you spend more money buying on impulse. 1gpbs you can buy that movie NOW instead of waiting for the blu ray. or get that PS4 game NOW instead of driving to gamestop or best buy or waiting on amazon
lots of terror attacks in the 80's
in the 90's we had the WTC bombing, the USS Cole and the embassy bombings. hundreds dead
2001 we had 9/11 and after that nothing
so you figure the new security and intel collection stopped at least a few attacks, which now means since there were no attacks all this is a waste of money
the FBI is a federal police force, not a spy agency that collects intelligence
facebook also has a IM
how would it cost them to market it until they get over 450 million users? or just buy a company
small businesses are the ones who should be buying ads through social media
regional TV is still too expensive for a small business like a restaurant or a club
you buy followers on twitter and facebook and update the streams for your fans
International sms costs money and lots if people have friends and family around the world
And kids are using thesr apps for privacy reasons
google is in the business of making money, like every other company in america. in fact google has higher profit margins than almost every other greedy and evil corp as branded by slashdotters and netizens
going into well served areas means a lot of potentially angry customers who can't wait to switch
this is 2014
put everything on wifi with a few dozen of your neighbors and then blame the ISP for every hiccup
i used to have xbox live disconnect when playing single player. put everything on cat5 and most of my problems magically vanished.
Wifi is like the old Layer 1 networks. everyone is broadcasting all their traffic into the air around you and your router and devices are trying to filter it out. that's why it keeps disconnecting
you are probably doing comcast a favor
torrenting a show once and then watching it from your local copy is better for them than streaming the same show multiple times from netflix