"Well done to Microsoft, they're showing greater care to their clients"
If you believe this, then take a couple steps back from the keyboard, take a couple of deep breaths and think. MS and most companies for that matter don't do things to be nice, they do it for their bottom line. With the large installed base of 98 would MS say this is your drop dead date and you will either upgrade, or risk security breaches. Customers would be outraged. While not changing the EOL for 98 would certainly have forced some customers to upgrade, it would still have left a bad taste in their collective mouths, and then others would have just hung onto 98 and if and when they ever did retire that OS, they may not have gone to another MS product.
Why have so many users (home and corporate) failed to upgrade from 98 to NT/2000/XP? Either because 98 does everything that they need it to do, or while there are things in current OS offerings that they would like, they have not seen enough MUST have features to warrant an upgrade of their OS and more than likely their hardware as well. Let's face it if a system is still running 98 it's probably not that new of a system, and while according to the minimum system requirements it may very well run 2k/XP, it isn't going to do it very well.
Bottom line is, MS decided to extend the EOL because of thier bottom line.
I stand corrected. It was getting late when I sent that post last night and I had been working on some T1 issues at the office most of the night (T1 data not T1 PRI). Never the less a single PRI will be plenty of voice capacity for the number of residents in this plan should they care to add voice to the mix. I know of a company providing voice to aprox 3500 users in a Campus setup using only 6 PRIs. They would also get a break on LD charges as they would get the dedicated rate rather than the normal switched rate.
"And let's not forget about Apple's recent troubles [thestar.com] porting their iTunes software to windows."
First clarification, my comments are not aimed at you but at this comment in general. I have seen similar posts all over the place and finally enough is enough. What are the troubles in porting this to windows? Studio issues? The only studio exec to be identified was the CTO for Sony. While the tech guys will have input as to wether the lables go for a windows version of iTunes or not, the financial folk will have a greater part in the decision making process.
This quote from the above mentioned article sums that point up best.
"Sources at other labels maintain that if the demand and money is there, concerns regarding usage rules will not be an issue in the long run."
If the issue is that it is not available for windows, my reply would be, when did any windows developer ever get blasted for releasing a new product and not have a Mac version available on release, or ever for that matter? Seems to me that those using this issue to some how indicate that iTunes is a not so grate product are simply suffering from Platform Envy.
Not sure what your local telco will charge but here (south western PA, Alltel service area) the price is quite reasonable. The longest pair that I have run 12,451 feet (running two Cisco 828 routers, g.shdsl, in a back to back setup on this connection) is running $5.16 per month and am pushing 2.3Mb symetrical.
There will of course be the intitial setup charge, one time, which again here is $50.
Cisco's LRE solution uses vdsl technology to carry data and vocie over a single telco grade copper pair. You will need an LRE switch which come in 8/12/24 port versions (the 2912 and 2924 have been and of saled but you can still find it in the channels. The switches are the 2912LRE-XL 2924LRE-XL 2950 8 LRE and 2950 24 LRE. If you plan on carrying voice over these links as well then you will also need a 48 port POTS splitter. This however is not a required item if you only plan to carry data.
At the customer end you will need either a 575 LRE or 585 LRE The 575 has a single fast ethernet port as well as an analog phone port, the 585 has 4 fast ethernet as well as the analog phone port. You should be able to find the 2950 24 LRE for around $2900 The 575's for about $95 and the 585s for around $150 For around $5200 you can get the 2950 24 LRE and 24 575 CPEs.
Cisco rates the units to provide between 1Mb and 16.2Mb up to a distance of 5000 feet (this is the distance of the copper not driving distance). While the unit is rated for 5000 feet I have personal set up a few of these with distances close to 7000 feet and still was able to pull 1Mb.
Your next step is to order a (well as many as you have customers) dry pair from you phone company. Some telcos will call these opx or alarm circuts. No matter what the case make sure that you specify that you want unconditioned (no dial-tone or battery power) with no side legs/taps (in other words a pair from point a to point b with no other connections along the way.) Depending on the telco these may cost you anywehere from a couple dollars a month to around half the price of a standard residential phone line.
The last part of the equation is some sort of high speed connection run to the location of the lre switch (T1 or higher). The great thing about the Cisco solution that other products mentioned here do not offer is QOS as well as per port rate limiting.
If you want to carrty this one step further you could become your own CLEC by adding a call manager server to this setup and a pri to bring the voice into the mix. Now not only can you provide broadband to your neighborhood you can provide dial tone as well. The pri can carry 24 simultanious calls and can have as many unique did numbers as you like.
With only 24 subscribers on the switch you are actually going to be very undersubscribed on the voice end of things. At the customer side you can either supply an ata 188 to connect to their existing telco wiring meaning that they can use all thier existing phones or you could siply provide a Cisco 7902/7905/7912/7940/7960 phone and have them be straight ip phones and then provide many additional services. The ATA 188 can provide 2 unique call paths so when one of your customers requires a second line all you do is either have them plug into the second port on the ata and configure it to go or you make a service call to them and wire it to a punch down block so that they can add the second line to mulitple phones. The possibilities are endless and while the setup costs might seem a bit high the recurring charges are minimal other than your ISP line and access charges.
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"Well done to Microsoft, they're showing greater care to their clients" If you believe this, then take a couple steps back from the keyboard, take a couple of deep breaths and think. MS and most companies for that matter don't do things to be nice, they do it for their bottom line. With the large installed base of 98 would MS say this is your drop dead date and you will either upgrade, or risk security breaches. Customers would be outraged. While not changing the EOL for 98 would certainly have forced some customers to upgrade, it would still have left a bad taste in their collective mouths, and then others would have just hung onto 98 and if and when they ever did retire that OS, they may not have gone to another MS product. Why have so many users (home and corporate) failed to upgrade from 98 to NT/2000/XP? Either because 98 does everything that they need it to do, or while there are things in current OS offerings that they would like, they have not seen enough MUST have features to warrant an upgrade of their OS and more than likely their hardware as well. Let's face it if a system is still running 98 it's probably not that new of a system, and while according to the minimum system requirements it may very well run 2k/XP, it isn't going to do it very well. Bottom line is, MS decided to extend the EOL because of thier bottom line.
I stand corrected. It was getting late when I sent that post last night and I had been working on some T1 issues at the office most of the night (T1 data not T1 PRI). Never the less a single PRI will be plenty of voice capacity for the number of residents in this plan should they care to add voice to the mix. I know of a company providing voice to aprox 3500 users in a Campus setup using only 6 PRIs. They would also get a break on LD charges as they would get the dedicated rate rather than the normal switched rate.
First clarification, my comments are not aimed at you but at this comment in general. I have seen similar posts all over the place and finally enough is enough. What are the troubles in porting this to windows? Studio issues? The only studio exec to be identified was the CTO for Sony. While the tech guys will have input as to wether the lables go for a windows version of iTunes or not, the financial folk will have a greater part in the decision making process.
This quote from the above mentioned article sums that point up best.
If the issue is that it is not available for windows, my reply would be, when did any windows developer ever get blasted for releasing a new product and not have a Mac version available on release, or ever for that matter? Seems to me that those using this issue to some how indicate that iTunes is a not so grate product are simply suffering from Platform Envy.
Not sure what your local telco will charge but here (south western PA, Alltel service area) the price is quite reasonable. The longest pair that I have run 12,451 feet (running two Cisco 828 routers, g.shdsl, in a back to back setup on this connection) is running $5.16 per month and am pushing 2.3Mb symetrical.
There will of course be the intitial setup charge, one time, which again here is $50.
Cisco's LRE solution uses vdsl technology to carry data and vocie over a single telco grade copper pair. You will need an LRE switch which come in 8/12/24 port versions (the 2912 and 2924 have been and of saled but you can still find it in the channels. The switches are the 2912LRE-XL 2924LRE-XL 2950 8 LRE and 2950 24 LRE. If you plan on carrying voice over these links as well then you will also need a 48 port POTS splitter. This however is not a required item if you only plan to carry data.
At the customer end you will need either a 575 LRE or 585 LRE The 575 has a single fast ethernet port as well as an analog phone port, the 585 has 4 fast ethernet as well as the analog phone port. You should be able to find the 2950 24 LRE for around $2900 The 575's for about $95 and the 585s for around $150 For around $5200 you can get the 2950 24 LRE and 24 575 CPEs.
Cisco rates the units to provide between 1Mb and 16.2Mb up to a distance of 5000 feet (this is the distance of the copper not driving distance). While the unit is rated for 5000 feet I have personal set up a few of these with distances close to 7000 feet and still was able to pull 1Mb.
Your next step is to order a (well as many as you have customers) dry pair from you phone company. Some telcos will call these opx or alarm circuts. No matter what the case make sure that you specify that you want unconditioned (no dial-tone or battery power) with no side legs/taps (in other words a pair from point a to point b with no other connections along the way.) Depending on the telco these may cost you anywehere from a couple dollars a month to around half the price of a standard residential phone line.
The last part of the equation is some sort of high speed connection run to the location of the lre switch (T1 or higher). The great thing about the Cisco solution that other products mentioned here do not offer is QOS as well as per port rate limiting.
If you want to carrty this one step further you could become your own CLEC by adding a call manager server to this setup and a pri to bring the voice into the mix. Now not only can you provide broadband to your neighborhood you can provide dial tone as well. The pri can carry 24 simultanious calls and can have as many unique did numbers as you like.
With only 24 subscribers on the switch you are actually going to be very undersubscribed on the voice end of things. At the customer side you can either supply an ata 188 to connect to their existing telco wiring meaning that they can use all thier existing phones or you could siply provide a Cisco 7902/7905/7912/7940/7960 phone and have them be straight ip phones and then provide many additional services. The ATA 188 can provide 2 unique call paths so when one of your customers requires a second line all you do is either have them plug into the second port on the ata and configure it to go or you make a service call to them and wire it to a punch down block so that they can add the second line to mulitple phones. The possibilities are endless and while the setup costs might seem a bit high the recurring charges are minimal other than your ISP line and access charges.