How is this a 5, Insightful? The point is being missed completely. It's not about metered access it's about metered access to specific applications. It's about telling someone they need to pay more to reliably to get point X. Who cares about metered bandwidth if that's what they want. It is the fact that they are trying to make the internet into private internets where you have to pay to play to access services.
The thing is, why would this be OK? Shouldn't they have priced this into their model? Does this mean if I don't use my cable modem I wouldn't get a bill? Something tells me that wouldn't be the case. Personally, I think they would be shooting themselves in the foot if they were go to a tiered pricing platform for equitable bandwidth use. From what we have read there are miles of dark fiber unused, they aren't investing THAT much into their supposed "upgrades" at this point. This is extortion, plain and simple. The bandwidth is PAID for: users pay to use their connection to get onto the internet and the web sites pay to send data out. I shouldn't have to pay for their over investments or buyouts that may have gone wrong. Look at Genuity (the combination of BB&N, GTE, Digital Island, etc). That place was bleeding BILLIONS of dollars a year. BILLIONS. It's not my fault that someone kept financing them until they were sold at bake sale prices.
I think the problem with this line of thinking is that the baby bells and the telecoms are in the pocket of congress and have been for many years. The lobbyists have been able to push back the telecom act with the FCC and spin so many things in their favor recently. My concern is that some of the new players (maybe not Microsoft) don't have the kind of clout to throw around where these decisions may finally end up.
Don't get me wrong, the prospect of this scares the crap out of me. I just don't know if we have enough people to make our case down on Capital Hill.
I think it you look at the threats people talk about to the internet: TLDs, DOS attacks, running out of IP address space, etc. this is the biggest threat we have seen to the internet as a whole.
Great. So far this year I've received a letter from from LexisNexis and Choice Point. When my identity was stolen at the beginning of the year I thought "How could this happen? I have been so careful with my information." Apparently is doesn't matter how careful *I* am when everyone else just seems to be giving it away.
Something has to be done to punish these people other than sending me a letter with how to PAY someone to watch my credit and alert me to "changes".
Exactly one week after I signed up for T-Mobile service my identity was stolen. The person started to change the address on my credit card (the one I used to sign up for the service) and proceeded to order thousands of dollars in "convenience checks". I was notified fairly quickly of the fraud, but it has created an insane nightmare of red tape to jump through to close all the accounts and watch my credit report. There has to be a better way to do this. For now it's back to a passport savings account and money orders. Oh, and of course I will add an extra layer of tinfoil to my hat.
I installed OSX 10.3.4 on an iBook last night for my mother. If you unselect the stuff you don't need (All of the language tranlations and printer drivers for example) I think the total install was 1.2GB or so.. I'm not sure where you're getting 5GB from.
I never understood how King of the Hill was kept in the line up with the frquency it has been while the Family Guy was canceled. King of the Hill is just not funny.
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How is this a 5, Insightful? The point is being missed completely. It's not about metered access it's about metered access to specific applications. It's about telling someone they need to pay more to reliably to get point X. Who cares about metered bandwidth if that's what they want. It is the fact that they are trying to make the internet into private internets where you have to pay to play to access services.
The thing is, why would this be OK? Shouldn't they have priced this into their model? Does this mean if I don't use my cable modem I wouldn't get a bill? Something tells me that wouldn't be the case. Personally, I think they would be shooting themselves in the foot if they were go to a tiered pricing platform for equitable bandwidth use. From what we have read there are miles of dark fiber unused, they aren't investing THAT much into their supposed "upgrades" at this point. This is extortion, plain and simple. The bandwidth is PAID for: users pay to use their connection to get onto the internet and the web sites pay to send data out. I shouldn't have to pay for their over investments or buyouts that may have gone wrong. Look at Genuity (the combination of BB&N, GTE, Digital Island, etc). That place was bleeding BILLIONS of dollars a year. BILLIONS. It's not my fault that someone kept financing them until they were sold at bake sale prices.
I think the problem with this line of thinking is that the baby bells and the telecoms are in the pocket of congress and have been for many years. The lobbyists have been able to push back the telecom act with the FCC and spin so many things in their favor recently. My concern is that some of the new players (maybe not Microsoft) don't have the kind of clout to throw around where these decisions may finally end up. Don't get me wrong, the prospect of this scares the crap out of me. I just don't know if we have enough people to make our case down on Capital Hill. I think it you look at the threats people talk about to the internet: TLDs, DOS attacks, running out of IP address space, etc. this is the biggest threat we have seen to the internet as a whole.
'nuff said.
All your base are belong to us.
Great. So far this year I've received a letter from from LexisNexis and Choice Point. When my identity was stolen at the beginning of the year I thought "How could this happen? I have been so careful with my information." Apparently is doesn't matter how careful *I* am when everyone else just seems to be giving it away. Something has to be done to punish these people other than sending me a letter with how to PAY someone to watch my credit and alert me to "changes".
Exactly one week after I signed up for T-Mobile service my identity was stolen. The person started to change the address on my credit card (the one I used to sign up for the service) and proceeded to order thousands of dollars in "convenience checks". I was notified fairly quickly of the fraud, but it has created an insane nightmare of red tape to jump through to close all the accounts and watch my credit report. There has to be a better way to do this. For now it's back to a passport savings account and money orders. Oh, and of course I will add an extra layer of tinfoil to my hat.
I installed OSX 10.3.4 on an iBook last night for my mother. If you unselect the stuff you don't need (All of the language tranlations and printer drivers for example) I think the total install was 1.2GB or so.. I'm not sure where you're getting 5GB from.
I never understood how King of the Hill was kept in the line up with the frquency it has been while the Family Guy was canceled. King of the Hill is just not funny.