Re:DSL and Cable are great...
on
DSL Rising
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· Score: 3, Informative
All the local ISPs in my area are selling DSL. I guess they are just re-selling Pac Bell's DSL...is that your point?
Yes. Local ISPs (like the one I work for) make little to no profit on resold DSL. If they make any profit per connection at all, it's because they charge more than the phone company does for the same service.
Ironically, that usually means they still make no profit.
Semifamous -- what ISP do you work for? I also work for a local ISP and we're currently looking into wireless as a broadband alternative. I'm curious how you set yourselves up.
DSL and Cable are great...
on
DSL Rising
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
But they're national network only solutions. Local ISPs have no real broadband alternative available to them yet.
Hopefully 802.11(x) will allow the little guys to compete.
Hey, you're preaching to the choir man! I have no problems with cookies whatsoever. I love 'em. 'Specially with milk.
Server-side session tracking *is* the better alternative to cookies, however, if only because of the limit on cookie data. If you have a complex list of user-definable options in your website (as is increasingly the case of late) or a potentially large amount of data you need to transfer from page to page (say a shopping cart), then this can be a problem.
You know... cookies are not all that bad, once you get to know them.;)
Seriously though, the framework, although apparently developed like swing, still outputs HTML and Applets to a browser. Cookies are a valid method of transferring state from one page to the next, although admittedly server-side session tracking is usually a better alternative.
Well, I'm of the opinion that it's a bad idea. At least in the TV spectrum. Broadcasters do still use those frequencies, and opening them up at nebulous times like "where the frequencies aren't being used" or "at times when they're not being used" is too much to regulate. What happens when you're in an area that can't view TV signals but your neibors a few miles down the road are able to just barely pick out a signal?
If you're on the same frequency, they're getting static.
BT... Bell Texas?
We're in America too. In our town, yes, there is a bit of monoplistic practices in the form of both the cable and the phone company, but that's because there isn't anyone else in town. It's not that way in *every* town, however, which is why I list monopolistic practices as rare.
I hope some competition comes into town soon, but it would require a new law allowing it... both utilities have ancient laws preventing any competing companies from opening!!!
Major PITA.
Previously people were saying that cheap WiFi networks were good for consumers, and you seem to counter that claim by saying that you will lose your job.
Ahh, I see what you mean now. By my read, they said nothing about *cheap* WiFi, and everything about non-profitable WiFi. There's a big difference.
Here's what they said:
First post: Why is everyone concerned about these companies being profitable? Let's get Wifi into as many hands as possible. The faster wireless networks can grow, the faster we can shit-can cable and phone companies and their arbitrary caps.
Second post: Exactly. If people put up 802.11 networks this offers them benefits, and others get benefits as well. The fact that big carriers can't make $ off it is actually GOOD for consumers, as there isn't additional cost being added.
They seem to think that non-profitable companies are somehow good for consumers which is flatly non-true. Non-profitable companies go out of business and people loose the services they offer. We are able to offer WiFi for a fair amount less than the local cable and phone companies are willing to offer their high-bandwidth options. Plus there's the whole boosted speed aspect.
You are correct, however, that lower costs for the consumer are a good thing.
I fail to see how the two are related. Charge what you like, if you get customers and that model works, winner. If it turns out that you charge too much and there is no uptake, hard cheese.
Do you think that companies arbitrarily set prices that are too high for the consumers to take advantage of? It seems like a lot of people here believe that. It's not true, BTW. Prices are set by what the market can sustain, barring monopolitstic practices which are rare even today.
I am interested in how your company make money since you claim to make no money on DSL or ISDN, does all your income come from dial up? How are your competitors making money? Gong forward how will they make money with dial-up dying out? Why is your company any different?
Exactly. Dial-up is dying out. And yes, we are (likely) the only local ISP in the area that is actually profitable. How do our competitors make money? Actually, they don't. All but one have sold out to national ISPs. The other is still not profitable, but subsidized by hardware sales and one large business network customer.
Why are we different? Well, you can blame my boss for that one; he doesn't buy unnecessary equipment like most ISPs do. Why buy a huge rack system for your servers when a pentium 200 with linux (actually BSD) does the job just fine for your customer base? When you expand, then you buy for what you need; not before.
Perhaps you need WiFi to be profitable (especially as it seems subsidize all your other offerings), but consumers don't need this.
As I mentioned before, consumers most certainly *do* need this. Without businesses making a profit, the goods and services they offer disappear. Unless you move to a more socialistic system, which many here no doubt prefer, but that's politics, not/.;)
For instance, how will you compete with a WiFi only company that does not run a loss making DSL or ISDN service? Surely they will always be able to undercut whatever you offer !? This is what I mean by saying that if you can't compete, its just tough, don't moan about it. If you need to keep existing ISDN customers whilst making a loss that is a business decision to basically invest that money in market share, alternatively you could decide to stop offering the loss making service, but at the expense of losing customers. Play your cards how you like.
ATM, reselling other options does not undercut our profits. If it did, you can bet we'd drop the service in an instant! We make no profit on DSL whatsoever. I mentioned "at a loss" if you count customer service, but frankly, the service required for DSL is very low comparitively. It makes better sense to offer it at no profit than to get rid of it. At the moment. Of course, WiFi is a better option for all involved, and costs less, too!:)
In any case, whether or not you have a job does not affect consumers in any way, and thus I can't see how this can be used to disprove earlier posts.
You know... Microsoft gets a big bum rap for a lot of its security holes. I will admit they tend, like every other major software company out there to release programs that need a patch or two, but (aside from those dreaded buffer overflows, which they still can't seem to get around) most of the stuff that is considered a "security hole" by the fine *nix crowd is really what they claim it is; a feature.
You can blame market research for finding the desire for those "features", to be sure, but a lot of this stuff was put there because people wanted it there.
... but why is it wrong that my company make a profit? Yes, times change, which is, of course, why the company is moving to high-speed internet rather than sticking with dial-up.
Wi-fi is the only self-operated option available to our company. Other options include DSL, which we resell from the phone company at no profit whatsoever (a loss if you count support), ISDN (same story), or satellite internet (basically the same story; we resell the service and hardware).
There are techniques for differentiating signals within a small frequency band, like chipping sequences (to name the first thing that comes to mind). Wi-fi would naturally use those.
But this is a problem why? My i810 does everything I need it to do. I don't need a different video card, and it's cheaper for me to buy an integrated one than to buy the latest polygon-pusher from nVidia.
But if I ever have the cach to go balls-out and buy an uber-gaming system, I can always get that speedy nVidia...
You're both wrong and I'll tell you why:
I work for a local ISP; wi-fi is (perhaps) the only available high-speed option for us that doesn't involve reselling DSL from the phone company. We *need* that to be profitable. If it isn't, we're going to go under because dial-up is a dying market. No profit == screwed small ISPs (and I lose my job).
Sequential and parallel functionality are entirely different. You cannot compute 1+2+3 in parallel; you need the result of the first computation to get the total.
What you can do in parallel, which is what the brain does anyway, is recognize a pattern.
Says who (besides you?). Can you back that up buddy? I think a hell of a lot of AI researchers will have a bone with what you said. And I don't just mean Kurzweil (http://www.kurzweilai.net/), though that's a good start.
Well, if you notice, I wasn't talking about AI, or that field of research. I was talking about artificial *sentience*, or what I called "Sci-fi AI". That's what the original poster (who has been modded into oblivion) seemed to imply would be available in 20 years.
As for "says who", I don't know, I haven't got any papers to quote offhand. Nor do I know if anyone has even taken such a position. It's simply one that has slowly been occuring to me over the last few years as I learned more and more about computer architecture and organization in the course of my studies. I'll discuss the whys (in hand-waving-I-haven't-done-a-doctoral-thesis-on-th is terms) below.
With enough speed the brain can be simulated..., because i)the brain is a physical device, ii)physics is computational, and therefore a computer can simulate it.
Ah, see that's part of my point; it's a physical/physics limitation. Computers are essentially sequential devices; read instruction, execute instruction, repeat. Brains work in parallel. And, although we can simulate parellism with computers by dividing the time programs have access the CPU into very small chunks, there is a limit to the amount of parellelism that can be achieved by doing this, and that limit (again waving hands here, I haven't worked out the math other than intuitively) doesn't come close to the amount of parallelism that even a child's brain is capable of. Putting more speed into the computer can raise that parallelism limit, but eventually you get down to limitations on the physical level, which (again, no math worked out here) still doesn't come close.
(even though that's not really the goal of AI)
Very true, which is why I'm extremely careful to diferentiate what I'm calling artificial sentience from AI. AI, to most people who research it, is thinking or acting rationally (i.e. getting or estimating the right answers). AI to most everyone else is HAL 9000. There is a very big difference between the two.
If you simulate the brain fully, then sentience is there (and don't give me crap like the zombie arguments and other nonsense of David Chalmers et al)
I agree to that. No zombie arguments from me.:)
I'm just suggesting that we won't be able to simulate the brain fully on computers. We need something different. And it's a hardware issue, not a software one. Essentially, we need to construct an artificial brain, not build a Java-based buddy.
Wow... all that and I haven't even started on the problems involved in memory I/O!
Did you read my post? I said that simulating sentience, i.e. human thought, will never work because of the way modern computers are designed. I also sais I think such a simulation is possible but it requires a new hardware paradigm that current computers do not use.
Computers are, regardless of how many pipelines you put into the chip, essentially sequential. The brain, however, is massively parallel. It would take a fundamental shift in the way computers are made to allow us to even come close to modeling the way the brain functions.
If you're referring to simulating human thought, computers will *never* be that advanced. At least not if we continue down the path we've been on, and engineering techniques make that unlikely.
Artificial sentience (Sci-fi AI) is a design problem, not a speed problem. I think it's possible, but not on your PC.
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All the local ISPs in my area are selling DSL. I guess they are just re-selling Pac Bell's DSL...is that your point?
Yes. Local ISPs (like the one I work for) make little to no profit on resold DSL. If they make any profit per connection at all, it's because they charge more than the phone company does for the same service.
Ironically, that usually means they still make no profit.
Semifamous -- what ISP do you work for? I also work for a local ISP and we're currently looking into wireless as a broadband alternative. I'm curious how you set yourselves up.
But they're national network only solutions. Local ISPs have no real broadband alternative available to them yet.
Hopefully 802.11(x) will allow the little guys to compete.
Neither did I, but that doesn't mean it's not possible.
Hey, you're preaching to the choir man! I have no problems with cookies whatsoever. I love 'em. 'Specially with milk. Server-side session tracking *is* the better alternative to cookies, however, if only because of the limit on cookie data. If you have a complex list of user-definable options in your website (as is increasingly the case of late) or a potentially large amount of data you need to transfer from page to page (say a shopping cart), then this can be a problem.
You know... cookies are not all that bad, once you get to know them. ;)
Seriously though, the framework, although apparently developed like swing, still outputs HTML and Applets to a browser. Cookies are a valid method of transferring state from one page to the next, although admittedly server-side session tracking is usually a better alternative.
Is gonna love this. *sigh* More work for me... ;)
Well, I'm of the opinion that it's a bad idea. At least in the TV spectrum. Broadcasters do still use those frequencies, and opening them up at nebulous times like "where the frequencies aren't being used" or "at times when they're not being used" is too much to regulate. What happens when you're in an area that can't view TV signals but your neibors a few miles down the road are able to just barely pick out a signal? If you're on the same frequency, they're getting static.
Which is of course why I added the silly little drum-drum-cymbal at the end of the post... implying that it was a dumb joke on my part.
Which implies that the deaf are dumb.
Da-dump ding!
BT... Bell Texas? We're in America too. In our town, yes, there is a bit of monoplistic practices in the form of both the cable and the phone company, but that's because there isn't anyone else in town. It's not that way in *every* town, however, which is why I list monopolistic practices as rare. I hope some competition comes into town soon, but it would require a new law allowing it... both utilities have ancient laws preventing any competing companies from opening!!! Major PITA.
Previously people were saying that cheap WiFi networks were good for consumers, and you seem to counter that claim by saying that you will lose your job.
Ahh, I see what you mean now. By my read, they said nothing about *cheap* WiFi, and everything about non-profitable WiFi. There's a big difference.
Here's what they said:
First post:
Why is everyone concerned about these companies being profitable? Let's get Wifi into as many hands as possible. The faster wireless networks can grow, the faster we can shit-can cable and phone companies and their arbitrary caps.
Second post:
Exactly. If people put up 802.11 networks this offers them benefits, and others get benefits as well. The fact that big carriers can't make $ off it is actually GOOD for consumers, as there isn't additional cost being added.
They seem to think that non-profitable companies are somehow good for consumers which is flatly non-true. Non-profitable companies go out of business and people loose the services they offer. We are able to offer WiFi for a fair amount less than the local cable and phone companies are willing to offer their high-bandwidth options. Plus there's the whole boosted speed aspect.
You are correct, however, that lower costs for the consumer are a good thing.
I fail to see how the two are related. Charge what you like, if you get customers and that model works, winner. If it turns out that you charge too much and there is no uptake, hard cheese.
Do you think that companies arbitrarily set prices that are too high for the consumers to take advantage of? It seems like a lot of people here believe that. It's not true, BTW. Prices are set by what the market can sustain, barring monopolitstic practices which are rare even today.
I am interested in how your company make money since you claim to make no money on DSL or ISDN, does all your income come from dial up? How are your competitors making money? Gong forward how will they make money with dial-up dying out? Why is your company any different?
Exactly. Dial-up is dying out. And yes, we are (likely) the only local ISP in the area that is actually profitable. How do our competitors make money? Actually, they don't. All but one have sold out to national ISPs. The other is still not profitable, but subsidized by hardware sales and one large business network customer.
Why are we different? Well, you can blame my boss for that one; he doesn't buy unnecessary equipment like most ISPs do. Why buy a huge rack system for your servers when a pentium 200 with linux (actually BSD) does the job just fine for your customer base? When you expand, then you buy for what you need; not before.
Perhaps you need WiFi to be profitable (especially as it seems subsidize all your other offerings), but consumers don't need this.
As I mentioned before, consumers most certainly *do* need this. Without businesses making a profit, the goods and services they offer disappear. Unless you move to a more socialistic system, which many here no doubt prefer, but that's politics, not /. ;)
For instance, how will you compete with a WiFi only company that does not run a loss making DSL or ISDN service? Surely they will always be able to undercut whatever you offer !? This is what I mean by saying that if you can't compete, its just tough, don't moan about it. If you need to keep existing ISDN customers whilst making a loss that is a business decision to basically invest that money in market share, alternatively you could decide to stop offering the loss making service, but at the expense of losing customers. Play your cards how you like.
ATM, reselling other options does not undercut our profits. If it did, you can bet we'd drop the service in an instant! We make no profit on DSL whatsoever. I mentioned "at a loss" if you count customer service, but frankly, the service required for DSL is very low comparitively. It makes better sense to offer it at no profit than to get rid of it. At the moment. Of course, WiFi is a better option for all involved, and costs less, too! :)
In any case, whether or not you have a job does not affect consumers in any way, and thus I can't see how this can be used to disprove earlier posts.
No, it just makes it more personal. :)
Yeah, it's more like ASP.NET == ASP v2
That's on a need to know basis, and you don't. :)
Well, I suppose they could tell you, but then they'd have to kill you.
You know... Microsoft gets a big bum rap for a lot of its security holes. I will admit they tend, like every other major software company out there to release programs that need a patch or two, but (aside from those dreaded buffer overflows, which they still can't seem to get around) most of the stuff that is considered a "security hole" by the fine *nix crowd is really what they claim it is; a feature.
You can blame market research for finding the desire for those "features", to be sure, but a lot of this stuff was put there because people wanted it there.
... but why is it wrong that my company make a profit? Yes, times change, which is, of course, why the company is moving to high-speed internet rather than sticking with dial-up.
Wi-fi is the only self-operated option available to our company. Other options include DSL, which we resell from the phone company at no profit whatsoever (a loss if you count support), ISDN (same story), or satellite internet (basically the same story; we resell the service and hardware).
There are techniques for differentiating signals within a small frequency band, like chipping sequences (to name the first thing that comes to mind). Wi-fi would naturally use those.
But this is a problem why? My i810 does everything I need it to do. I don't need a different video card, and it's cheaper for me to buy an integrated one than to buy the latest polygon-pusher from nVidia. But if I ever have the cach to go balls-out and buy an uber-gaming system, I can always get that speedy nVidia...
You're both wrong and I'll tell you why: I work for a local ISP; wi-fi is (perhaps) the only available high-speed option for us that doesn't involve reselling DSL from the phone company. We *need* that to be profitable. If it isn't, we're going to go under because dial-up is a dying market. No profit == screwed small ISPs (and I lose my job).
Sequential and parallel functionality are entirely different. You cannot compute 1+2+3 in parallel; you need the result of the first computation to get the total. What you can do in parallel, which is what the brain does anyway, is recognize a pattern.
Doh! Not payin attention...
Says who (besides you?). Can you back that up buddy? I think a hell of a lot of AI researchers will have a bone with what you said. And I don't just mean Kurzweil (http://www.kurzweilai.net/), though that's a good start.
h is terms) below.
:)
Well, if you notice, I wasn't talking about AI, or that field of research. I was talking about artificial *sentience*, or what I called "Sci-fi AI". That's what the original poster (who has been modded into oblivion) seemed to imply would be available in 20 years.
As for "says who", I don't know, I haven't got any papers to quote offhand. Nor do I know if anyone has even taken such a position. It's simply one that has slowly been occuring to me over the last few years as I learned more and more about computer architecture and organization in the course of my studies. I'll discuss the whys (in hand-waving-I-haven't-done-a-doctoral-thesis-on-t
With enough speed the brain can be simulated..., because i)the brain is a physical device, ii)physics is computational, and therefore a computer can simulate it.
Ah, see that's part of my point; it's a physical/physics limitation. Computers are essentially sequential devices; read instruction, execute instruction, repeat. Brains work in parallel. And, although we can simulate parellism with computers by dividing the time programs have access the CPU into very small chunks, there is a limit to the amount of parellelism that can be achieved by doing this, and that limit (again waving hands here, I haven't worked out the math other than intuitively) doesn't come close to the amount of parallelism that even a child's brain is capable of. Putting more speed into the computer can raise that parallelism limit, but eventually you get down to limitations on the physical level, which (again, no math worked out here) still doesn't come close.
(even though that's not really the goal of AI)
Very true, which is why I'm extremely careful to diferentiate what I'm calling artificial sentience from AI. AI, to most people who research it, is thinking or acting rationally (i.e. getting or estimating the right answers). AI to most everyone else is HAL 9000. There is a very big difference between the two.
If you simulate the brain fully, then sentience is there (and don't give me crap like the zombie arguments and other nonsense of David Chalmers et al)
I agree to that. No zombie arguments from me.
I'm just suggesting that we won't be able to simulate the brain fully on computers. We need something different. And it's a hardware issue, not a software one. Essentially, we need to construct an artificial brain, not build a Java-based buddy.
Wow... all that and I haven't even started on the problems involved in memory I/O!
Did you read my post? I said that simulating sentience, i.e. human thought, will never work because of the way modern computers are designed. I also sais I think such a simulation is possible but it requires a new hardware paradigm that current computers do not use.
Computers are, regardless of how many pipelines you put into the chip, essentially sequential. The brain, however, is massively parallel. It would take a fundamental shift in the way computers are made to allow us to even come close to modeling the way the brain functions.
If you're referring to simulating human thought, computers will *never* be that advanced. At least not if we continue down the path we've been on, and engineering techniques make that unlikely. Artificial sentience (Sci-fi AI) is a design problem, not a speed problem. I think it's possible, but not on your PC.
I'm not the only one.