If you NEED clustering you are talking about an enterprise scale implementation. If you are talking about an enterprise scale implementation and it isn't going to make you enough to justify enterprise level support... you might need to reconsider whatever led you down this path.
I work in enterprise tech and I find it annoying how much the entry level products cost or that some of them don't work without a current support contract. But the only reason that is annoying is that I'd like a small ex switch running (the latest) junos or an f5 ltm/gtm virtual machine (again with latest os) in my home lab rack.
Anywhere these products actually NEED to be deployed for production the cost of the gear/support is a minor blip on the budget compared to the cost of them ever going down in a way that impacts production.
Yeah, of course you could have accomplished the same thing with a tech savy high school grad who plays with the web for $10/hr and without the boot camp.
Generally here in the US calls in network are free, calls to anyone on nights and weekends are free. On some plans calls to all mobiles are free or calls to a fixed list of numbers.
Any other time you are on your phone, it uses minutes. There are generally a fixed number of minutes included in your plan.
With a landline local calls and all incoming calls are free. Long distance calls are charged by the minute.
"(Actually true about the lady in the phone and my Gran, I won't even try to explain about her and ATMs)"
Either that or you are gullible and she likes to fuck with you.
I've known quite a few older people. They all play the old card and pretend to forget things or that they don't know how to do things to get other to do them. If they don't like the current conversation they will inject a whole new conversation or pretend they can't hear and people dismiss it as senile old grandma.
Because we all have them and know their technical capabilities. Grandmas have enough trouble using the phone, let alone handling tasks like left click and right click, understanding a web browser, the internet etc.
I've met some older women have no trouble with any of these things. I haven't met an 80yr old power user yet but I've met 70 yr olds who can browse alongside their grandchildren. Sadly, in the real world this is the exception and not the norm.
It isn't really about intellect. The elderly are afraid of change and for them digital interaction is change.
'If the direction of the sun relative to earth can change the amount of light in my bedroom, why couldn't the direction of the sun relative to earth be changed through the action of my light-switch?'
Sounds pretty reasonable. You turn on your switch, this causes photons to flood the room and bounce all over the place. These photons inevitably collide with the photons coming from the sun. This causes a sub-catacolonic reaction* in a neighboring universe which causes trans-unlilateral-multidimensional-orbital-resonance (TUMOR) that modifies the rate of solar flares (which are tiny partial movements of part of the sun).
Next week I'll be back to explain how sweating causes global warming.
* Just think of this as a colonic reaction in the rear of a universe.
Yes they are illegal. First, tethering is not inbuilt in all phones (are you in the EU or something? this entire story doesn't apply to you if you are) if it was there wouldn't be fine articles like http://www.brighthub.com/mobile/google-android/articles/42679.aspx telling you how to enable usb debugging and use rogue applications to do it.
Even if it were included in every phone here in the US it is illegal to use a carriers network (or any device attached to it) in a way that they haven't authorized. If AT&T hasn't sold you tethering, it is illegal for you to tether a device attached to their network. And when I say illegal, I mean criminal, not merely a breach of contract. You will go to prison if prosecuted.
$10-15 US Dollars lifetime. Unlike your university, telcos don't have to pay for the link, only the equipment so it doesn't cost annually. Plus, here in the US they get to deduct that cost from their income before paying taxes. Peering between major telcos (which is who we are talking about) is a wash and everyone smaller than the major telcos has to pay them to peer.
We can work with your numbers but your math is a bit off. 600000 euro-per-year, divided by 100000 users is 6 euro-per-year. That would be half a euro-per-month for 2Mbps of unshared, full duplex, 99.999% SLA bandwidth. In the US they will sell 1.5 of that 2Mbps for 1253.50 euros-per-month.
Shared consumer bandwidth aren't 100Mbps shared bandwidth links here though. They are 6Mbps/768Kps for decent 'high speed' no SLA or guarantees connections. That will run you about 33.5/euros-per-month at a cost, using your numbers, of 1.5/euros-per-month.
"Watching on the go? Your handheld device with an 800x480 pixel display can display only EDTV like a DVD, not HDTV."
The IPAD has a 1024x768 screen, which is well above 480p HD.
"Watching at home and tethering because your home can't get cable or DSL? Use your 2 GB on a postal disc rental service to pick out Blu-ray Discs."
Or I could watch streaming movies on demand using today's technology and convenience instead the old snail mail systems of a decade ago.
"But X is less than the number of subscribers times the burstable speed of the average subscriber."
You are saying it as if X is some written is stone number. There is no technical barrier here, nor is there is a cost limitation preventing the major telcos (I recognize this is different for smaller fish) from changing the statement you made above. The only thing that makes them think they can force an artificially limited infrastructure upon us is monopoly power.
"If everybody used their home circuit's full capacity at once, the power company probably wouldn't have the peak load generating capacity to handle it, resulting in a brownout."
This is not accurate. Electric companies base their rates on fuel costs (fuel is the reason you are charged based on usage) not on discouraging you from using your service. If actual usage (which will never be 1-1 even without conservation) begins to result in brownouts the power company doesn't raise rates to discourage use. They build more infrastructure if needed (normally they are ahead of demand on this and just fire up more coal) and then IF needed increase rates to recoup the cost of the infrastructure.
Do you know the average lifetime wholesale cost (in the USA/Europe) of 6mb/6mb full duplex guaranteed bandwidth with a 99.999% SLA on a 1Gbps port? $60. The major providers don't have to pay this much, they sell it for this to other slightly smaller providers.
Comcast sells a consumer link at 6mb/768k asymetric (speedbooster speeds don't count) with no guarantee, no SLA, and with throttling for $40/MONTH.
They could offer unthrottled 6MB up/down with 99.999% SLA at this rate with an 800% markup OVER average wholesale, not their actual cost.
Hell, I pay $25/month for a dedicated 100mb full duplex unmetered backbone link and that includes managment of the server plugged into it.
Maybe you think it is find and dandy to ridiculously overcharge the consumer like this but I don't.
"There is no glut. There is no idle infrastructure. There is a very real shortage of infrastructure, and the fairest rationing method always comes down to price."
This is the myth. In Canada they actually forced AT&T to reveal infrastructure utilization details (boy did they howl at that) and nowhere are they even close to 50% utilization of the existing infrastructure.
It also fails to explain the immaculate infrastructure and high capacities enjoyed by the rest of the world yet that don't exist in even the most high user density areas of the US.
Electricity and gas are finite resources. A single lump of coal converts to only so much electricity. Firing lots of furnaces continually may create the illusion that it is a fixed capacity pipe but it isn't and I am confident you will find some references to fuel on your bill. For instance, Florida Power and Light has multiple fuel sources. They figure that fuel type x is more expensive and represents say 10% of the power they produce. As a result, the first 10% of your bill is charged based on the cost to produce that power with the higher cost fuel, and the price of the lower cost fuel is used to calculate the rest.
This isn't the case with bandwidth. There is no internet fuel that is consumed. There is no magic pixie dust consumed when you utilize your connection. The ISP pays for equipment that is capable of transferring data at speed X. Aside from possible negligible power differences there is no cost difference between utilizing that equipment at 1% or 100% and there is no major carrier with pipes utilized over 50%, congestion is a myth.
The big companies did the same thing that happens to small companies. They plan for usage to grow as quickly as it did. Rather than catering to growing demand by increasing infrastructure they want flex monopoly muscles and grow by forcing users to curb their demand back inline with the telco's original plans for the infrastructure.
The contracts generally state that they can change the terms of the contract. Pretty much every agreement with entrenched business these days has terms like this.
That is the real bottom line here. AT&T and other big encumbants are in the same position small growing companies hope to find themselves in. They ran out of supplies because demand was greater than they expected. The small growing companies buy more supplies, even borrow for more supplies if they need to.
Encumbant telecoms don't want to increase their inventory to match the demand, instead they want to use their monopoly position and collusion to force you to buy only as much product as they had planned to provide.
Users who don't utilize their service to the fullest have no right to complain. They have always had the option to take advantage of what they pay for.
1Mbps on a 1 Gbps link costs an average of in the USA and Europe wholesale. AT&T and the other massive providers don't pay average wholesale price, they pay far far less. These same companies charge $1500/month for 1.5Mbps of that bandwidth.
Granted there is additional infrastructure cost to run links out to businesses and consumers but current consumer shared link prices are MUCH closer to being in the ballpark than commercial symetric links.
Providing dedicated bandwidth to everyone might result in a temporary drop for some on the downlinks (anyone lucky enough to be on 20Mbps+ links in the US for instance, not so much for 6Mbps links though). Our infrastructure is so antiquated and behind the realistic potential that speeds at even dedicated bandwidth would exceed todays shared speeds in a very short time.
As I said elsewhere. This would have the added benefit of decentralizing hosting which disperses network load greatly. Additionally it has the added benefits of making throttling, censorship, electronic wiretapping, and other evils more difficult.
"I really don't see why an ISP shouldn't be able to de-prioritize users who hog BW, causing delays for others."
Because what you call a hog isn't a hog at all. It is someone who is making use of what they purchased. It is not the fault of the 'bandwidth hog' that there are other users who don't make use of their connection or that the ISP oversells their service.
"your proposals are simply to give everyone an independent 1Gbps internet connection for $5/month"
You act as if this would be a bad thing. God forbid we develop a robust and advanced infrastructure and can deliver symetric 1Gbps connections.
The problem first of all is that ISPs are already used to charging ridiculous prices for very little service. But the service I refer to isn't the consumer internet connections it is the commercial and hosting connections.
The internet works best as a decentralized system. When you centralize all the capacity like the major ISP's do and serve all the content in one place then you bottleneck your capacity at a central point that ultimately has to handle almost all the transfer. If you give everyone uncapped wirespeed links at the fastest rate you can deliver, both up and down, then hosting becomes decentralized.
Large organizations will do as they do now and serve their content from multiple locations closer to population centers and smaller content that is more likely to be of local interest will travel through far fewer links.
How much streaming hd video content do you get with 2gb? 2-4 movies? over the course of an entire month. I stream that much daily on my internet connection. I transfer at least twice as much again in terms of data downloads and a tiny fraction of that in browsing (even with flash).
The traditional internet service providers have no problem handling this... including AT&T. In the US they are providing slow cheap connections compared to their global counterparts and they whine and moan while the bulk of the infrastructure they have already in place is dark.
Bandwidth is comparable to watts, not joules. AT&T doesn't pay for transfer, they pay for pipes of X size. Why should their customers pay for transfer?
The airlines are a very poor example. They have had to be bailed out over and over again because their model doesn't work. They are also notorious for aging infrastructure.
Slashdot Mirror
If you NEED clustering you are talking about an enterprise scale implementation. If you are talking about an enterprise scale implementation and it isn't going to make you enough to justify enterprise level support... you might need to reconsider whatever led you down this path.
I work in enterprise tech and I find it annoying how much the entry level products cost or that some of them don't work without a current support contract. But the only reason that is annoying is that I'd like a small ex switch running (the latest) junos or an f5 ltm/gtm virtual machine (again with latest os) in my home lab rack.
Anywhere these products actually NEED to be deployed for production the cost of the gear/support is a minor blip on the budget compared to the cost of them ever going down in a way that impacts production.
Yeah, of course you could have accomplished the same thing with a tech savy high school grad who plays with the web for $10/hr and without the boot camp.
Generally here in the US calls in network are free, calls to anyone on nights and weekends are free. On some plans calls to all mobiles are free or calls to a fixed list of numbers.
Any other time you are on your phone, it uses minutes. There are generally a fixed number of minutes included in your plan.
With a landline local calls and all incoming calls are free. Long distance calls are charged by the minute.
"(Actually true about the lady in the phone and my Gran, I won't even try to explain about her and ATMs)"
Either that or you are gullible and she likes to fuck with you.
I've known quite a few older people. They all play the old card and pretend to forget things or that they don't know how to do things to get other to do them. If they don't like the current conversation they will inject a whole new conversation or pretend they can't hear and people dismiss it as senile old grandma.
Agreed those city sized directories make no sense. In small towns of 50k pop or less there is still a use for phone books.
And stick grandma with the new third world AT&T data plans? I love my grandma you insensitive clod.
It costs money to receive a cell call. If I want you to have my phone number, I'll give it to you.
I think published directories should be an opt-in service.
Because we all have them and know their technical capabilities. Grandmas have enough trouble using the phone, let alone handling tasks like left click and right click, understanding a web browser, the internet etc.
I've met some older women have no trouble with any of these things. I haven't met an 80yr old power user yet but I've met 70 yr olds who can browse alongside their grandchildren. Sadly, in the real world this is the exception and not the norm.
It isn't really about intellect. The elderly are afraid of change and for them digital interaction is change.
I'm sorry but you are mistaken and under some odd impression that I have never plugged in a phone before.
The same models are available because they are developed in the US. But localized versions are sold just as with most products.
It isn't hard to turn the capability on. Its trivial. It is also highly illegal unless you have permission from the carrier.
'If the direction of the sun relative to earth can change the amount of light in my bedroom, why couldn't the direction of the sun relative to earth be changed through the action of my light-switch?'
Sounds pretty reasonable. You turn on your switch, this causes photons to flood the room and bounce all over the place. These photons inevitably collide with the photons coming from the sun. This causes a sub-catacolonic reaction* in a neighboring universe which causes trans-unlilateral-multidimensional-orbital-resonance (TUMOR) that modifies the rate of solar flares (which are tiny partial movements of part of the sun).
Next week I'll be back to explain how sweating causes global warming.
* Just think of this as a colonic reaction in the rear of a universe.
Yes they are illegal. First, tethering is not inbuilt in all phones (are you in the EU or something? this entire story doesn't apply to you if you are) if it was there wouldn't be fine articles like http://www.brighthub.com/mobile/google-android/articles/42679.aspx telling you how to enable usb debugging and use rogue applications to do it.
Even if it were included in every phone here in the US it is illegal to use a carriers network (or any device attached to it) in a way that they haven't authorized. If AT&T hasn't sold you tethering, it is illegal for you to tether a device attached to their network. And when I say illegal, I mean criminal, not merely a breach of contract. You will go to prison if prosecuted.
$10-15 US Dollars lifetime. Unlike your university, telcos don't have to pay for the link, only the equipment so it doesn't cost annually. Plus, here in the US they get to deduct that cost from their income before paying taxes. Peering between major telcos (which is who we are talking about) is a wash and everyone smaller than the major telcos has to pay them to peer.
We can work with your numbers but your math is a bit off. 600000 euro-per-year, divided by 100000 users is 6 euro-per-year. That would be half a euro-per-month for 2Mbps of unshared, full duplex, 99.999% SLA bandwidth. In the US they will sell 1.5 of that 2Mbps for 1253.50 euros-per-month.
Shared consumer bandwidth aren't 100Mbps shared bandwidth links here though. They are 6Mbps/768Kps for decent 'high speed' no SLA or guarantees connections. That will run you about 33.5/euros-per-month at a cost, using your numbers, of 1.5/euros-per-month.
"Peering is a whole other matter, but generally serves to decrease cost of bandwidth for ISPs."
Exactly and peering among telco sized ISPs is a non-issue since both sides need the peering.
AT&T doesn't have to pay to be peered with you, AT&T gives it to you in the tailpipe for the privilege and you say thank you sir may I have another.
"Watching on the go? Your handheld device with an 800x480 pixel display can display only EDTV like a DVD, not HDTV."
The IPAD has a 1024x768 screen, which is well above 480p HD.
"Watching at home and tethering because your home can't get cable or DSL? Use your 2 GB on a postal disc rental service to pick out Blu-ray Discs."
Or I could watch streaming movies on demand using today's technology and convenience instead the old snail mail systems of a decade ago.
"But X is less than the number of subscribers times the burstable speed of the average subscriber."
You are saying it as if X is some written is stone number. There is no technical barrier here, nor is there is a cost limitation preventing the major telcos (I recognize this is different for smaller fish) from changing the statement you made above. The only thing that makes them think they can force an artificially limited infrastructure upon us is monopoly power.
"If everybody used their home circuit's full capacity at once, the power company probably wouldn't have the peak load generating capacity to handle it, resulting in a brownout."
This is not accurate. Electric companies base their rates on fuel costs (fuel is the reason you are charged based on usage) not on discouraging you from using your service. If actual usage (which will never be 1-1 even without conservation) begins to result in brownouts the power company doesn't raise rates to discourage use. They build more infrastructure if needed (normally they are ahead of demand on this and just fire up more coal) and then IF needed increase rates to recoup the cost of the infrastructure.
Do you know the average lifetime wholesale cost (in the USA/Europe) of 6mb/6mb full duplex guaranteed bandwidth with a 99.999% SLA on a 1Gbps port? $60. The major providers don't have to pay this much, they sell it for this to other slightly smaller providers.
Comcast sells a consumer link at 6mb/768k asymetric (speedbooster speeds don't count) with no guarantee, no SLA, and with throttling for $40/MONTH.
They could offer unthrottled 6MB up/down with 99.999% SLA at this rate with an 800% markup OVER average wholesale, not their actual cost.
Hell, I pay $25/month for a dedicated 100mb full duplex unmetered backbone link and that includes managment of the server plugged into it.
Maybe you think it is find and dandy to ridiculously overcharge the consumer like this but I don't.
Right, because AT&T doesn't route their wireless internet connection through their existing network.
"There is no glut. There is no idle infrastructure. There is a very real shortage of infrastructure, and the fairest rationing method always comes down to price."
This is the myth. In Canada they actually forced AT&T to reveal infrastructure utilization details (boy did they howl at that) and nowhere are they even close to 50% utilization of the existing infrastructure.
It also fails to explain the immaculate infrastructure and high capacities enjoyed by the rest of the world yet that don't exist in even the most high user density areas of the US.
Electricity and gas are finite resources. A single lump of coal converts to only so much electricity. Firing lots of furnaces continually may create the illusion that it is a fixed capacity pipe but it isn't and I am confident you will find some references to fuel on your bill. For instance, Florida Power and Light has multiple fuel sources. They figure that fuel type x is more expensive and represents say 10% of the power they produce. As a result, the first 10% of your bill is charged based on the cost to produce that power with the higher cost fuel, and the price of the lower cost fuel is used to calculate the rest.
This isn't the case with bandwidth. There is no internet fuel that is consumed. There is no magic pixie dust consumed when you utilize your connection. The ISP pays for equipment that is capable of transferring data at speed X. Aside from possible negligible power differences there is no cost difference between utilizing that equipment at 1% or 100% and there is no major carrier with pipes utilized over 50%, congestion is a myth.
The big companies did the same thing that happens to small companies. They plan for usage to grow as quickly as it did. Rather than catering to growing demand by increasing infrastructure they want flex monopoly muscles and grow by forcing users to curb their demand back inline with the telco's original plans for the infrastructure.
The contracts generally state that they can change the terms of the contract. Pretty much every agreement with entrenched business these days has terms like this.
That is the real bottom line here. AT&T and other big encumbants are in the same position small growing companies hope to find themselves in. They ran out of supplies because demand was greater than they expected. The small growing companies buy more supplies, even borrow for more supplies if they need to.
Encumbant telecoms don't want to increase their inventory to match the demand, instead they want to use their monopoly position and collusion to force you to buy only as much product as they had planned to provide.
Users who don't utilize their service to the fullest have no right to complain. They have always had the option to take advantage of what they pay for.
1Mbps on a 1 Gbps link costs an average of in the USA and Europe wholesale. AT&T and the other massive providers don't pay average wholesale price, they pay far far less. These same companies charge $1500/month for 1.5Mbps of that bandwidth.
Granted there is additional infrastructure cost to run links out to businesses and consumers but current consumer shared link prices are MUCH closer to being in the ballpark than commercial symetric links.
Providing dedicated bandwidth to everyone might result in a temporary drop for some on the downlinks (anyone lucky enough to be on 20Mbps+ links in the US for instance, not so much for 6Mbps links though). Our infrastructure is so antiquated and behind the realistic potential that speeds at even dedicated bandwidth would exceed todays shared speeds in a very short time.
As I said elsewhere. This would have the added benefit of decentralizing hosting which disperses network load greatly. Additionally it has the added benefits of making throttling, censorship, electronic wiretapping, and other evils more difficult.
"I really don't see why an ISP shouldn't be able to de-prioritize users who hog BW, causing delays for others."
Because what you call a hog isn't a hog at all. It is someone who is making use of what they purchased. It is not the fault of the 'bandwidth hog' that there are other users who don't make use of their connection or that the ISP oversells their service.
"your proposals are simply to give everyone an independent 1Gbps internet connection for $5/month"
You act as if this would be a bad thing. God forbid we develop a robust and advanced infrastructure and can deliver symetric 1Gbps connections.
The problem first of all is that ISPs are already used to charging ridiculous prices for very little service. But the service I refer to isn't the consumer internet connections it is the commercial and hosting connections.
The internet works best as a decentralized system. When you centralize all the capacity like the major ISP's do and serve all the content in one place then you bottleneck your capacity at a central point that ultimately has to handle almost all the transfer. If you give everyone uncapped wirespeed links at the fastest rate you can deliver, both up and down, then hosting becomes decentralized.
Large organizations will do as they do now and serve their content from multiple locations closer to population centers and smaller content that is more likely to be of local interest will travel through far fewer links.
I have a better idea. Why don't we upgrade infrastructure to match the demand like the rest of the modern world has done.
How much streaming hd video content do you get with 2gb? 2-4 movies? over the course of an entire month. I stream that much daily on my internet connection. I transfer at least twice as much again in terms of data downloads and a tiny fraction of that in browsing (even with flash).
The traditional internet service providers have no problem handling this... including AT&T. In the US they are providing slow cheap connections compared to their global counterparts and they whine and moan while the bulk of the infrastructure they have already in place is dark.
Bandwidth is comparable to watts, not joules. AT&T doesn't pay for transfer, they pay for pipes of X size. Why should their customers pay for transfer?
The airlines are a very poor example. They have had to be bailed out over and over again because their model doesn't work. They are also notorious for aging infrastructure.