It's not hard to switch home ISP's; sorry, it just isn't. Try changing service providers for a midsize business. It takes me, on average, ninety days to get an Ethernet circuit delivered to one of my customers. This is regular, business-grade fiber Ethernet from major players like AT&T and Cogent. It's a non-stop uphill battle to establish services. This is because the engineer wants something the outside plant people don't like, the provisioning team never requested the address space, the splice case is in a manhole under three feet of snow and the field techs won't dig (for real), the install tech wasn't dispatched with the right equipment, or whatever... It never goes smoothly, and the circuits are rarely delivered on time. It is a hair-pulling nightmare to switch service providers, and that's aside from all of the internal network stuff that needs to be done. A savings of $300-400 per month on a $2,500/mo circuit is hardly worth it given the lead time and hassle. Switching from DSL to cable at your house is too hard because you're stuck dealing with terms you agreed to? Sorry, look elsewhere for pity.
I question ATT's ability to close COs and eliminate bulky class 4 and 5 switches anytime soon. Most SMB IP services aren't delivered natively, but rather via AT&T's legacy TDM network, like 6MB Ethernet on 4x T1 circuits. Lots of wire is needed to backhaul these services (8 pairs for the above), and moving circuit cards closer to the customer seems like it would be a step in the wrong direction. There will be a need for DS1-based network support until these customers in particular can be moved to Ethernet via fiber, or some other modern delivery platform.
Palm once led the PDA market. Their PalmOS platform was revolutionary in the 90's because it was flexible, fostered good battery life and most importantly was easy to use. When Palm moved into the smartphone market, they did very little to revamp their aging operating system. Rather, Palm tacked on advanced wireless functionality their platform couldn't really handle. They are losing to Apple and RIM because these companies designed their hardware and software from the ground up for rock-solid email and voice communication.
5% of subscribers use over 50% of the total network bandwidth.
That's their own damn fault for under-engineering their access network and offering speeds they can't reliably deliver. I'm guessing those 5% users are the ones making them the money. These are the customers with their $80/month internet Ultra-BlastOff(TM) 8Mb/768 with Mega-Boost®.
BC's old datacenter was in the A HREF="http://www.bc.edu/offices/its/projects/move2006/photographs/oneill/" O'Neil Library." My favorite pic is the fourth one. I hope that Cisco 6500 isn't routed by the Linksys job sitting on top of it!
Agreed, but they need to get a product that lives up to the Cisco name first. Linksys is really the best of the residential routers, but they still crash frequently and that just isn't inline with Cisco's reputation of rock-solid hardware. Putting the Cisco brand on theser could spell disaster. Let's hope the few years the change will take is spent bolstering the quality of their consumer device line.
Oh, and has anyone else noticed the new cartoony cisco logo now appearing on routers and switches? I'll save my bitching until one actually goes bad.
2.C.ii. IP Television (IPTV) The growth of satellite service, digital cable, video-on-demand (VoD) and of high-definition television (HDTV) has revolutionized the video market, but a new technology threatens to shake things up even more. IP television (IPTV) works just like VoIP, but for video rather than voice. The difference between IPTV and basic cable is that channels are not all transmitted simultaneously (Figure 2.3). The transmission of video as a data stream is nothing new; online news websites, e-learning tools, and video conferencing have utilized streaming video for over a decade, but the quality was never high enough for television. IPTV uses the same principal but harnesses the power broadband services like VDSL and fiber to deliver broadcast-quality video services. New quality standards have helped eliminate the poor quality video and choppy, tin-can-sounding audio often associated with streaming video. Because it permits two-way communication, it can support advanced features like video-on-demand, personal media channels, and digital video recorder (DVR).
IP television can transmit video directly to users for 'on-demand' video and DVR applications, or multicast to many users much like traditional broadcast television. Though multicast technology provides the answer to the problem of pumping the same content out to millions of subscribers simultaneously, individual video streams must be generated for VoD and other services. This content streams from a VoD server at the local distribution office. Though more flexible and (potentially) cheaper than traditional cable, the system is very expensive in terms of bandwidth [4]. While video is able to ride the super-fast core network to the CO, a bottleneck becomes apparent as it nears the living room: the local DSL loop. Streaming all channels requires gigabits of bandwidth, but even the newest ADSL technology tops out at around 25 Mbits/s. So how do you send hundreds of channels to an IPTV subscriber with using DSL? Simple: you get rid of the DSL and run fiber directly to the customer, or only send a few channels at a time (let's assume it's the latter for now). There is in fact no such thing as "tuning" anymore--the box is simply an IP receiver. For IPTV to become a viable whole-house solution though, it will also need to support enough simultaneous channels to allow televisions in different rooms to display different content. Juggling the resulting IP traffic is one of the trickiest parts of making IPTV work. The actual number of simultaneous streams supported per consumer varies by network, but it's rarely more than four standard-definition channels or one HDTV channel. Phone companies have much to gain from this technology; currently satellite providers are the only competition to the cable giants. [4]
What the hell was a list of usernames and passwords doing on the site anyway? Can anyone shed some light on this? That's a huge security risk. An attacker could use usernames and passwords to launch a massive spam attack via MySpace's messaging features.
I'd imagine only 10% of the tracks filling up all the new iPods are legal downloads. Everyone else is firing up their favorite P2P app to get tunes. I can tell you from experience that NOTHING is worse for routers than all the traffic from P2P connections. I wonder what kind of headaches major ISP's faced.
There will always be a need for a secure area to house mission-critical applications. You will --NEVER-- never see an ERP system or core switch/router chilling out in a wiring closet down the hall, even if it's the size of a desktop PC. You need rock-solid infrastructure to support this stuff, and you can't get it outside a datacenter. The environment needs access control, fire supression, water detection, redundant HVAC, redundant power, all the other works. Datacenters may end up shrinking in size, but they will never go away.
Come ON! That's no way to move data. It's not futureproof by any stretch of the imagination and not scalable. I MIGHT see it working in a historic district or something where you can't get facilities in place but that's a real stretch. Gas companies want a piece of the broadband pie and that's it. They'd be better off just setting up wiMax towers. At least then they could tap the mobile market. Twisted pair, coax and fiber are mediums designed to move data (I mean signal, excuse me) in one way or another. This ultra wide band nonsense is no solution for an exponentially expanding demand for high bandwidth services. Just think... one giant collision domain! I see the theory but come on, this is just too far fetched.
Smooth. Getting the damn fiber in the ground once and for all sounded like too good of a plan did it? Verizon needed a way to move back in time instead of forward? I wonder how many more years carriers will spend trying to squeeze whatever they can out of old, decaying infrastructure. We all know how great cable modems and DSL work compared to 'true' digital circuits (T1, Frame, etc) and fiber-based infrastructure. There are so many fundamental flaws with reusing old wiring for new services that I don't even know where to begin (Cable Modems = shared medium & collision city, DSL = distance limitations and interference, etc.). Because most homes already have coaxial cable installed in several rooms... GIVE ME A BREAK! I'm sure that was a real deal-breaker.
TiVo has already started testing popup ads on their devices. With users locked into the service, subscribers can't bail out if TiVo goes forward with the ads.
I absolutely love my TiVo, but have made up my mind to dump it if they start showing ads.
The potential already exists for thousands of frequencies or lambdas per fiber using DWDM (Dense Wave Division Multiplexing). Next-generation optical switches hold the promise of managing those light signals without converting the signals to electrical and then back again.
Assigning each house in a neighborhood a specific lambda would is an attractive way to distribute services using a single fiber. However, the need to multiplex the signal makes this approach infeasible with current technology. Muxing signals for transmission over fiber is a complex process requiring significant processing power, expensive equipment, and either a central office or hut to hold all the gear. Perhaps one day, passive devices mounted on aerial lines or in distribution cabinets can be used to 'grab' a specific lambda and direct it to a fiber serving the customer's home.
I don't see how a laptop could ever replace hard-copy textbooks. Firstly, ink and paper is much easier on the eyes than text on a screen. Secondly, I am constantly flipping back and forth in the book, highlighting, and taking notes in the margin. I'll even print my digital downloads for this exact purpose. While certain software allows for note taking and bookmaking, etc., it is hardly a substitute for the simplicity and flexibility of good old analog pen and paper. Also, I've yet to have a book crash on me and lose all its contents. Linux or not, I wouldn't trust my extensive tech book library to a sub-$100 laptop.
This proposed system does present some unique advantages though. Firstly, text will be much cheaper to distribute, though some sort of minimally intrusive DRM will need to be developed to protect the rights of the author. Secondly, text will be available more quickly as the printing process is eliminated. You could also receive corrections and revision updates online. This would be especially useful in technical writing, as new editions often contain important changes to reflect the latest software.
They could accomplish their goal in a much more appropriate way by simply tracking how much gas you buy and what type of vehicle you drive. This would be a lot cheaper and simpler than building an infrastructure to collect and parse the data from all these GPS things (remember, GPS is RECEIVE ONLY!).
Slashdot Mirror
It's not hard to switch home ISP's; sorry, it just isn't. Try changing service providers for a midsize business. It takes me, on average, ninety days to get an Ethernet circuit delivered to one of my customers. This is regular, business-grade fiber Ethernet from major players like AT&T and Cogent. It's a non-stop uphill battle to establish services. This is because the engineer wants something the outside plant people don't like, the provisioning team never requested the address space, the splice case is in a manhole under three feet of snow and the field techs won't dig (for real), the install tech wasn't dispatched with the right equipment, or whatever... It never goes smoothly, and the circuits are rarely delivered on time. It is a hair-pulling nightmare to switch service providers, and that's aside from all of the internal network stuff that needs to be done. A savings of $300-400 per month on a $2,500/mo circuit is hardly worth it given the lead time and hassle. Switching from DSL to cable at your house is too hard because you're stuck dealing with terms you agreed to? Sorry, look elsewhere for pity.
I question ATT's ability to close COs and eliminate bulky class 4 and 5 switches anytime soon. Most SMB IP services aren't delivered natively, but rather via AT&T's legacy TDM network, like 6MB Ethernet on 4x T1 circuits. Lots of wire is needed to backhaul these services (8 pairs for the above), and moving circuit cards closer to the customer seems like it would be a step in the wrong direction. There will be a need for DS1-based network support until these customers in particular can be moved to Ethernet via fiber, or some other modern delivery platform.
Palm once led the PDA market. Their PalmOS platform was revolutionary in the 90's because it was flexible, fostered good battery life and most importantly was easy to use. When Palm moved into the smartphone market, they did very little to revamp their aging operating system. Rather, Palm tacked on advanced wireless functionality their platform couldn't really handle. They are losing to Apple and RIM because these companies designed their hardware and software from the ground up for rock-solid email and voice communication.
5% of subscribers use over 50% of the total network bandwidth.
That's their own damn fault for under-engineering their access network and offering speeds they can't reliably deliver. I'm guessing those 5% users are the ones making them the money. These are the customers with their $80/month internet Ultra-BlastOff(TM) 8Mb/768 with Mega-Boost®.
Crap. Yea yea, I know I should use the preview... Thanks mom. Can you fix that for me mod?
BC's old datacenter was in the A HREF="http://www.bc.edu/offices/its/projects/move2006/photographs/oneill/" O'Neil Library." My favorite pic is the fourth one. I hope that Cisco 6500 isn't routed by the Linksys job sitting on top of it!
...a ton of used SAN equipment is about to hit eBay. Sweeeet.
Agreed, but they need to get a product that lives up to the Cisco name first. Linksys is really the best of the residential routers, but they still crash frequently and that just isn't inline with Cisco's reputation of rock-solid hardware. Putting the Cisco brand on theser could spell disaster. Let's hope the few years the change will take is spent bolstering the quality of their consumer device line.
Oh, and has anyone else noticed the new cartoony cisco logo now appearing on routers and switches? I'll save my bitching until one actually goes bad.
2.C.ii. IP Television (IPTV)
The growth of satellite service, digital cable, video-on-demand (VoD) and of high-definition television (HDTV) has revolutionized the video market, but a new technology threatens to shake things up even more. IP television (IPTV) works just like VoIP, but for video rather than voice. The difference between IPTV and basic cable is that channels are not all transmitted simultaneously (Figure 2.3). The transmission of video as a data stream is nothing new; online news websites, e-learning tools, and video conferencing have utilized streaming video for over a decade, but the quality was never high enough for television. IPTV uses the same principal but harnesses the power broadband services like VDSL and fiber to deliver broadcast-quality video services. New quality standards have helped eliminate the poor quality video and choppy, tin-can-sounding audio often associated with streaming video. Because it permits two-way communication, it can support advanced features like video-on-demand, personal media channels, and digital video recorder (DVR).
IP television can transmit video directly to users for 'on-demand' video and DVR applications, or multicast to many users much like traditional broadcast television. Though multicast technology provides the answer to the problem of pumping the same content out to millions of subscribers simultaneously, individual video streams must be generated for VoD and other services. This content streams from a VoD server at the local distribution office.
Though more flexible and (potentially) cheaper than traditional cable, the system is very expensive in terms of bandwidth [4]. While video is able to ride the super-fast core network to the CO, a bottleneck becomes apparent as it nears the living room: the local DSL loop. Streaming all channels requires gigabits of bandwidth, but even the newest ADSL technology tops out at around 25 Mbits/s. So how do you send hundreds of channels to an IPTV subscriber with using DSL? Simple: you get rid of the DSL and run fiber directly to the customer, or only send a few channels at a time (let's assume it's the latter for now). There is in fact no such thing as "tuning" anymore--the box is simply an IP receiver. For IPTV to become a viable whole-house solution though, it will also need to support enough simultaneous channels to allow televisions in different rooms to display different content. Juggling the resulting IP traffic is one of the trickiest parts of making IPTV work. The actual number of simultaneous streams supported per consumer varies by network, but it's rarely more than four standard-definition channels or one HDTV channel. Phone companies have much to gain from this technology; currently satellite providers are the only competition to the cable giants. [4]
What the hell was a list of usernames and passwords doing on the site anyway? Can anyone shed some light on this? That's a huge security risk. An attacker could use usernames and passwords to launch a massive spam attack via MySpace's messaging features.
I'd imagine only 10% of the tracks filling up all the new iPods are legal downloads. Everyone else is firing up their favorite P2P app to get tunes. I can tell you from experience that NOTHING is worse for routers than all the traffic from P2P connections. I wonder what kind of headaches major ISP's faced.
There will always be a need for a secure area to house mission-critical applications. You will --NEVER-- never see an ERP system or core switch/router chilling out in a wiring closet down the hall, even if it's the size of a desktop PC. You need rock-solid infrastructure to support this stuff, and you can't get it outside a datacenter. The environment needs access control, fire supression, water detection, redundant HVAC, redundant power, all the other works. Datacenters may end up shrinking in size, but they will never go away.
...for mismanagement of captured RFID information.
It figures magstripe is at the top of the list in a study done by VISA.
Yea, and it's hard to find the right drivers.
Come ON! That's no way to move data. It's not futureproof by any stretch of the imagination and not scalable. I MIGHT see it working in a historic district or something where you can't get facilities in place but that's a real stretch. Gas companies want a piece of the broadband pie and that's it. They'd be better off just setting up wiMax towers. At least then they could tap the mobile market. Twisted pair, coax and fiber are mediums designed to move data (I mean signal, excuse me) in one way or another. This ultra wide band nonsense is no solution for an exponentially expanding demand for high bandwidth services. Just think... one giant collision domain! I see the theory but come on, this is just too far fetched.
Smooth. Getting the damn fiber in the ground once and for all sounded like too good of a plan did it? Verizon needed a way to move back in time instead of forward? I wonder how many more years carriers will spend trying to squeeze whatever they can out of old, decaying infrastructure. We all know how great cable modems and DSL work compared to 'true' digital circuits (T1, Frame, etc) and fiber-based infrastructure. There are so many fundamental flaws with reusing old wiring for new services that I don't even know where to begin (Cable Modems = shared medium & collision city, DSL = distance limitations and interference, etc.). Because most homes already have coaxial cable installed in several rooms... GIVE ME A BREAK! I'm sure that was a real deal-breaker.
Oops! I thought this had to do with the previous Slashdot article, "Testing Drugs on India's Poor."
But I keep my feelings about the Postal Service to myself.
We need to be cautious, as Britney Spears at 200db could have a devistating effect on the entire oceanic ecosystem.
TiVo has already started testing popup ads on their devices. With users locked into the service, subscribers can't bail out if TiVo goes forward with the ads.
I absolutely love my TiVo, but have made up my mind to dump it if they start showing ads.
-David
The potential already exists for thousands of frequencies or lambdas per fiber using DWDM (Dense Wave Division Multiplexing). Next-generation optical switches hold the promise of managing those light signals without converting the signals to electrical and then back again.
Assigning each house in a neighborhood a specific lambda would is an attractive way to distribute services using a single fiber. However, the need to multiplex the signal makes this approach infeasible with current technology. Muxing signals for transmission over fiber is a complex process requiring significant processing power, expensive equipment, and either a central office or hut to hold all the gear. Perhaps one day, passive devices mounted on aerial lines or in distribution cabinets can be used to 'grab' a specific lambda and direct it to a fiber serving the customer's home.
-DJ
It's all the hassles of DSL but now with NO WIRES!
Most people don't even bother to name their networks. "Linksys" "default" "netgear" are what I typically see.
> one has to wonder how well it deals with people moving their wireless access points
This is especially true with ad-hoc networks.
I don't see how a laptop could ever replace hard-copy textbooks. Firstly, ink and paper is much easier on the eyes than text on a screen. Secondly, I am constantly flipping back and forth in the book, highlighting, and taking notes in the margin. I'll even print my digital downloads for this exact purpose. While certain software allows for note taking and bookmaking, etc., it is hardly a substitute for the simplicity and flexibility of good old analog pen and paper. Also, I've yet to have a book crash on me and lose all its contents. Linux or not, I wouldn't trust my extensive tech book library to a sub-$100 laptop.
This proposed system does present some unique advantages though. Firstly, text will be much cheaper to distribute, though some sort of minimally intrusive DRM will need to be developed to protect the rights of the author. Secondly, text will be available more quickly as the printing process is eliminated. You could also receive corrections and revision updates online. This would be especially useful in technical writing, as new editions often contain important changes to reflect the latest software.
They could accomplish their goal in a much more appropriate way by simply tracking how much gas you buy and what type of vehicle you drive. This would be a lot cheaper and simpler than building an infrastructure to collect and parse the data from all these GPS things (remember, GPS is RECEIVE ONLY!).