Then why do cable rates continue to climb as the industry becomes more and more consolidated? Since the '96 Telcomm Act which laregly deregulated the industry, rates have gone up 36% versus 14% inflation. I think you overlook that most cable companies operate as monopolies in a given city.
I would like to agree with you but that statute specifies a cable service. The FCC is considering how to classify cable modem services, they'll probably not classify them the same as cable services.
The long term strategy of companies selling broadband to the consumer market is not to sell bits. There's not nearly as much profit potential in selling bits, which is essentially a commodity market, as in selling content and thus be able to sell eyeballs to advertisers.
A content company with control over the pipes into consumers homes means that they can capture all of the profit w/o having to share. Remember when AT&T wanted to charge businesses for all ecommerce transactions that went to their broadband customers? This is what AOL/TW is about and why open access matters.
So broadband operators can take a loss leader on the price of broadband, or sell as close to cost as possible even though there isn't meaningful competition in the broadband market. They need customers so that they can partner with content providers and advertisers. Just wait for interactive TV.
Straight fiber channel would be best, if you can out a "hop" then that will obviously improve performance. Whether it gives you the manageability of the data that you want, given the distributed nature of access, is another matter. Usually it requires proprietary kernel modules for all OS's that want to access the SAN, so think expensive and potentially difficult to manage. You'll get to know your vendor real well.
Generally, Fiber channel is tuned for disk access, so its made for just getting big blocks of data. GigE uses smaller ethernet frames AND you'll have the overhead of IP on top of that.
From the Sprintlink multicast page "... all SprintLink customers can request to have multicast services enabled, completely free of charge."
Sprintlink sells t1 - OC48, no consumer services. But if your ISP peers with them that's one less excuse they have not to give it to you. I still wouldn't hold my breath.
Last I knew broadcast.com attempted to stream its content over multicast and reported a 5% success rate. They're big enough to use this as a ballpark figure for the percentage of the 'net that has multicast (which is pretty sad imho). They have a list of their multicast affiliates, ISP's that can receive multicast events and programming.
The question of broadband's killer app must be embedded in a consideration of who will control the broadband marketplace. Consider Lawerence Lessig relating a Sony exec's experiences in trying to get video streaming deployed over IP on broadband networks. The exec said a cable operator told him "we will shut down broadband before we ever allow this technology on our lines". From a talk he gave at the Conference on the Public Domain, here's the realvideo of the panel he was on "From Anarchist Software to Peer2Peer Culture: the Public Domain in Bandwidth, Software and Content". The comment is about 10minutes in (watch the whole thing its amazing).
Apparently that cable operator thinks there is some advantage to controlling the content that flows over their lines. P2p networks, open access and a broadband internet don't seem to fit into their vision of broadband, seems likely that they'll build closed content broadband networks so that they get to define what the killer app is.
Consider:
Asymetric bandwidth. Guess why bandwidth is asymetric, they don't want content competition from their customers.
ATT, the nation's largest cable operator, at one point made noises about asking a percentage of the ecommerce that flowed over their pipes to the Internet.
the "Cisco whitepaper". Cisco marketing equipment to cable internet operators to make competitors traffic slower. Analysis.
Oh, the cable operators' killer app is interactive television. Perfect marketing information that they can sell, shoving products in your face. Is that your killer app?
This is an excellent question. Access to transit will still be required, an ISP could charge for transit and not have to worry about the last mile beyond sticking a few antennas up. Or a group of them could do it to share costs and compete on services. Or maybe the equipment manufacturers would want to do it, after all they are the ones who have been lobbying the FCC and Congress to set aside unregulated spectrum so they can sell hardware.
That's an excellent idea. Its difficult to implement that in practice because government isn't fluid enough to keep up w/ the technology, though it is trying to, particularly in the case of 802.16.
Spoken like someone who has never tried to set up 802.11b in a populated area.
Actually, I have:)
We aren't talking about you and your neghbor using cordless phones on the same frequencies anymore. We've gone Waaaay beyond that.
Yes, I wasn't suggesting that either the technology or the regulatory regime that 802.11b exists in is up to the task of replacing say the cell phone network. Neither was the author of the article on CNET. 802.11b does establish a model for what is possible if you have an open standard and a regulatory environment that supports its.
Are you familiar w/ the work of the 802.16 working group? They are seeking to implement technology and standards in cooperation w/ government to make ad hoc wireless metro area networks more feasible. 802.11b was not designed for that task and ultimately will not be able to scale for it, but the model is what's important.
Hi, I appreciate the thought that went into your comment but I thinked you've assumed unlicensed == unregulated which is not true. Equipment in the 2.4 ISM band is regulated, devices have strict power restrictions and behavior ettiquette that they must follow, backed by the force of law. If the regulations are not sufficient for a target application then government needs to come up with regulatory regimes that are in partnership with industry. And that's exactly what's happening.
License free (open, if you will) 900mhz and 2.4ghz are a different model of spectrum regulation resulting from equipment manufacturers (particularly apple in the 802.11b case), rather than content providers, taking the lead in working with government to work out the regs and in the standards bodies. The new NII band in 5ghz is a refinement of this process, a new partnership of government and industry centered around open standards. Heck a member of NIST's NWEST group is the chair of the 802.16 working group. The kinds of partnerships that are taking place are very much like those that the open source community are looking for in advancing its movement, as Benkler's writings will bear out.
I'd be interested to hear what you thought of the technical papers that I reference, or the work of the 802.16 working group to hear if they address any of your concerns.
A free-for-all is not what the article advocates, nor is it what exists in the band that 802.11b occupies. Don't confuse unlicensed with unregulated. There are power and behavior restrictions in the unlicensed bands. The articles referenced go into more detail both polically and technically how this can be accomplished.
What do people think of the license for VP3. It has some weird provisions about derived software always being compatible with the original codec and some weird patent language.
VP3 is a codec that will be supported by Realplayer and Quicktime, the source was released a few months back.
Re:Bandwith without connectivity is worthless
on
Make Your Own DSL
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· Score: 2
Buying in bulk is cheaper, that's the idea of a co-op. 30 houses sharing the cost of a T1 would pay less than if they individually got 30 adsl lines from a telco.
This move is clearly an EFF pander to the newfound popularity of anti-capitalist, anti-free-trade gtoups.
Could you defend this a bit, I'd be interested to hear what your reasoning is, the rest of your comment talks about trade and the DMCA, not the EFF. EFF's position seems consistent to me given their work around the DMCA. Expanding its work into the international fora seems quite appropriate given that EFF was chartered to defend rights in cyberspace generally and the effect the FTAA's IP provisions will have on cyberspace.
The largest body of protesters at the Quebec FTAA meeting, as at the Seattle WTO meeting, were from labor unions, who are hardly anti-business. The campaigns (of which large protests are just one aspect of) that are being led against corporate control of multinational institutions are the result of coalitions of groups from a very wide range of civil society. Unfortunately the mainstream media chooses to focus on the least articulate stone throwers it can find when portraying opposition to the FTAA. In fact, in addition to labor, immigrant rights groups, environmental groups, health advocates like ACTUP, etc oppose the FTAA. Let's hope now we can add the civil liberties and geek constituencies to that list!
Can anyone clarify the range without line of site? It sounds like Alex is saying the range of 802.11b is comparable to the Metricom radios. I've found 802.11 to be pretty limited w/o LOS, so I would be willing to trade a doubling of range for the bandwidth.
I got this reply from Speakeasy when asking about getting on the MBONE:
Unfortunately, we do not support MBONE connectivity. You could set it up personally with our DSL, but the setup would most likely be suboptimal. You'd need to load all of the proper software kernels and configurations, etc.
This sounds like their network supports it but not their phone drones.
The website mentions that it can encode output compatible with RealMedia, I didn't see any mention of being able to decode. I take that to mean they have reverse engineered the file format (a great achievement if that's the case) but not the codec.
Because you are the product being sold to advertisers. Because advertising as it is practiced is a coercive.
Some people I know who work on the technology of personalized ad delivery claim that it will empower the consumer. I'm skeptical that this can be realized anytimes soon given the interest that the ad industry has in being able to have tight control over the choices that consumer's have. Yes, its anti-market but why play fair when you can cheat and rake in the dough?
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Then why do cable rates continue to climb as the industry becomes more and more consolidated? Since the '96 Telcomm Act which laregly deregulated the industry, rates have gone up 36% versus 14% inflation. I think you overlook that most cable companies operate as monopolies in a given city.
I would like to agree with you but that statute specifies a cable service. The FCC is considering how to classify cable modem services, they'll probably not classify them the same as cable services.
The long term strategy of companies selling broadband to the consumer market is not to sell bits. There's not nearly as much profit potential in selling bits, which is essentially a commodity market, as in selling content and thus be able to sell eyeballs to advertisers.
A content company with control over the pipes into consumers homes means that they can capture all of the profit w/o having to share. Remember when AT&T wanted to charge businesses for all ecommerce transactions that went to their broadband customers? This is what AOL/TW is about and why open access matters.
So broadband operators can take a loss leader on the price of broadband, or sell as close to cost as possible even though there isn't meaningful competition in the broadband market. They need customers so that they can partner with content providers and advertisers. Just wait for interactive TV.
Straight fiber channel would be best, if you can out a "hop" then that will obviously improve performance. Whether it gives you the manageability of the data that you want, given the distributed nature of access, is another matter. Usually it requires proprietary kernel modules for all OS's that want to access the SAN, so think expensive and potentially difficult to manage. You'll get to know your vendor real well.
Generally, Fiber channel is tuned for disk access, so its made for just getting big blocks of data. GigE uses smaller ethernet frames AND you'll have the overhead of IP on top of that.
Check out the Everything Over Freenet project especially the freenetified apt-get (apt is the Debian package manager).
From the Sprintlink multicast page "... all SprintLink customers can request to have multicast services enabled, completely free of charge."
Sprintlink sells t1 - OC48, no consumer services. But if your ISP peers with them that's one less excuse they have not to give it to you. I still wouldn't hold my breath.
Last I knew broadcast.com attempted to stream its content over multicast and reported a 5% success rate. They're big enough to use this as a ballpark figure for the percentage of the 'net that has multicast (which is pretty sad imho). They have a list of their multicast affiliates, ISP's that can receive multicast events and programming.
Apparently that cable operator thinks there is some advantage to controlling the content that flows over their lines. P2p networks, open access and a broadband internet don't seem to fit into their vision of broadband, seems likely that they'll build closed content broadband networks so that they get to define what the killer app is.
Consider:
Oh, the cable operators' killer app is interactive television. Perfect marketing information that they can sell, shoving products in your face. Is that your killer app?
Lots of missed info for a project that whose source was released in early September. Good to see it finally got noticed by /.
-first source is available on vp3.com. You must register to download (hrm).
-Its license is MPL derived, with some restrictions on IP for their patents. Also derivatives must always be able to play VP3.
-Its streamable with QT hinting.
-only currently available for Win and Mac. Port to *nix should be easy since there is code for OS X.
-Apple and Real will be supporting it in their players
This is an excellent question. Access to transit will still be required, an ISP could charge for transit and not have to worry about the last mile beyond sticking a few antennas up. Or a group of them could do it to share costs and compete on services. Or maybe the equipment manufacturers would want to do it, after all they are the ones who have been lobbying the FCC and Congress to set aside unregulated spectrum so they can sell hardware.
That's an excellent idea. Its difficult to implement that in practice because government isn't fluid enough to keep up w/ the technology, though it is trying to, particularly in the case of 802.16.
Spoken like someone who has never tried to set up 802.11b in a populated area.
:)
Actually, I have
We aren't talking about you and your neghbor using cordless phones on the same frequencies anymore. We've gone Waaaay beyond that.
Yes, I wasn't suggesting that either the technology or the regulatory regime that 802.11b exists in is up to the task of replacing say the cell phone network. Neither was the author of the article on CNET. 802.11b does establish a model for what is possible if you have an open standard and a regulatory environment that supports its.
Are you familiar w/ the work of the 802.16 working group? They are seeking to implement technology and standards in cooperation w/ government to make ad hoc wireless metro area networks more feasible. 802.11b was not designed for that task and ultimately will not be able to scale for it, but the model is what's important.
Hi, I appreciate the thought that went into your comment but I thinked you've assumed unlicensed == unregulated which is not true. Equipment in the 2.4 ISM band is regulated, devices have strict power restrictions and behavior ettiquette that they must follow, backed by the force of law. If the regulations are not sufficient for a target application then government needs to come up with regulatory regimes that are in partnership with industry. And that's exactly what's happening.
License free (open, if you will) 900mhz and 2.4ghz are a different model of spectrum regulation resulting from equipment manufacturers (particularly apple in the 802.11b case), rather than content providers, taking the lead in working with government to work out the regs and in the standards bodies. The new NII band in 5ghz is a refinement of this process, a new partnership of government and industry centered around open standards. Heck a member of NIST's NWEST group is the chair of the 802.16 working group. The kinds of partnerships that are taking place are very much like those that the open source community are looking for in advancing its movement, as Benkler's writings will bear out.
I'd be interested to hear what you thought of the technical papers that I reference, or the work of the 802.16 working group to hear if they address any of your concerns.
A free-for-all is not what the article advocates, nor is it what exists in the band that 802.11b occupies. Don't confuse unlicensed with unregulated. There are power and behavior restrictions in the unlicensed bands. The articles referenced go into more detail both polically and technically how this can be accomplished.
What do people think of the license for VP3. It has some weird provisions about derived software always being compatible with the original codec and some weird patent language.
VP3 is a codec that will be supported by Realplayer and Quicktime, the source was released a few months back.
Buying in bulk is cheaper, that's the idea of a co-op. 30 houses sharing the cost of a T1 would pay less than if they individually got 30 adsl lines from a telco.
A class action suit would be the last resort, first complain to the local utility board.
Now would be a good time to start using and donating to Freenet which provides anonymous communication and is immune to censorship.
This move is clearly an EFF pander to the newfound popularity of anti-capitalist, anti-free-trade gtoups.
Could you defend this a bit, I'd be interested to hear what your reasoning is, the rest of your comment talks about trade and the DMCA, not the EFF. EFF's position seems consistent to me given their work around the DMCA. Expanding its work into the international fora seems quite appropriate given that EFF was chartered to defend rights in cyberspace generally and the effect the FTAA's IP provisions will have on cyberspace.
The largest body of protesters at the Quebec FTAA meeting, as at the Seattle WTO meeting, were from labor unions, who are hardly anti-business. The campaigns (of which large protests are just one aspect of) that are being led against corporate control of multinational institutions are the result of coalitions of groups from a very wide range of civil society. Unfortunately the mainstream media chooses to focus on the least articulate stone throwers it can find when portraying opposition to the FTAA. In fact, in addition to labor, immigrant rights groups, environmental groups, health advocates like ACTUP, etc oppose the FTAA. Let's hope now we can add the civil liberties and geek constituencies to that list!
... project is already doing it. See their Linux Scalability Project.
Can anyone clarify the range without line of site? It sounds like Alex is saying the range of 802.11b is comparable to the Metricom radios. I've found 802.11 to be pretty limited w/o LOS, so I would be willing to trade a doubling of range for the bandwidth.
Check out James Bessen's paper "Sequential Innovation, Patents and Imitation" who makes an economic arguement about why patents are harmful in innovative industries.
This sounds like their network supports it but not their phone drones.
The website mentions that it can encode output compatible with RealMedia, I didn't see any mention of being able to decode. I take that to mean they have reverse engineered the file format (a great achievement if that's the case) but not the codec.
Why not just ask me
Because you are the product being sold to advertisers. Because advertising as it is practiced is a coercive.
Some people I know who work on the technology of personalized ad delivery claim that it will empower the consumer. I'm skeptical that this can be realized anytimes soon given the interest that the ad industry has in being able to have tight control over the choices that consumer's have. Yes, its anti-market but why play fair when you can cheat and rake in the dough?