Um, for one. All of these boxes hotmail and yahoo are running are only going to have http ports open. So the only problem they are going to have to worry about is with the httpd. No one is going to root a box with userland programs if they can never log in. ----------
Give me a break. The CRTC may inhibit Canadian choice in media by forcing us to view a certain percentage of Canadian material -- but beyond that, there is no draconian censorship. If you've ever gone to the movies in the United States, then canada -- you notice that the majority of movies that are rated R in the US are 14aa in Canada. Why? Because it's stupid to regulate such things. As for pornographic censorship, I'd like to see this instance and any case law. If you followed the news 3 months ago, the supreme court even let off some prick with kiddie porn in his house because he had a right to have whatever he wanted in it (should be eventually overturned). Fuck up, yes. But that just proves that Canada has a serious vested interest of protecting our privacy and freedoms. I mean, the supreme court was almost willing to let this guy off because of the precedence the case could set in other areas.
Anyway, as for competition laws, it does make some sense. My cable provider has been nice, but I hear horror stories of users of rogers cable. In every area that got sympatico adsl -- that also had rogers cable -- everyone i know switched over because of the terrible service. Unfortunately though, this is the case for many of the MSO's in the united states using @home also. RR & Mediaone seem to be fine, however. ----------
Actually, cable internet is not even close to a net loss -- unless your cable provider is too cheap to even set up bidirectional connections for viewer guide and instant ppv services. True, it does take a lot of capital to initially upgrade the network, but in the long run they will be making a nice profit. The average user using high speed access uses 1/4 less than a dialup user would being connected all day downloading at 3KB/s. The speed may come in bursts, but you read the page longer than you load them, dont you? As for needing huge backbones to connect the modems to the internet, that isn't true. Its a misconception because so many people have the potential to use bandwidth at the same time -- but they dont. If its a really small town they could get off with 2 -5 t1's at the best commodities of scale. ----------
heh. too bad you arent using shaw:). I've had perfect service since 1996. I only recall one month where they were having growing pains, but it has been great ever since. They actually resegment their networks and increase provider bandwidth before a problem arises.
They also have multiple connections to sprint-canada, uunet canada, @home, teleglobe. I feel for you rogers users stuck routing through mae and sprint-nap. I really do:). Shaw btw, is also the largest MSO cable provider in north america right now (from user count that is). Too bad rogers didn't do it right the first time and only use @home's connections for the value added www page instead of really really crappy peering at overloaded naps. ----------
Ok. 1. FreeBSD also has a package system that allows you to install binaries. (try/stand/sysinstall) 2. Many compile time options. IE. I wanted to compile the newest vesion of apache -- but you can't just get binaries with both mod_perl and php compiled in -- so i just cd to/usr/ports/www/apache13-php3 and compiled apache13+php3+modssl+freetype with the 'make' command; then compiled in mod_perl, then did make install. There are also many programs that I run into that I like to modify before installing. 3. You are right though, that compiling wasted precious time and cpu. I, however, prefer being able to modify settings before compile and install. Large programs like X, though, I'll just install from/stand/sysinstall. ----------
A less than compelling article. The author draws many false conclusions. This sounds like some people i know that use metaphors completely out of context in an argument to sway the feeble minded. Like many people have said in this forum before: It's the PR, not how the actual product works:). For almost a year now I have been hearing that Linux is going to replace the windows desktop -- and anyone who has actually used it knows that Windows definitely knows it is the better desktop system currently. ----------
Um, please don't use they. I'm tired of these stereotypes and general comments. Advocacy like that, is just stupid. He should have either backed up his comments or kept them to himself. And yes, I am a FreeBSD user who also happens to use Linux, aix, solaris, irix, netbsd, windows 95, windows nt, and even a little Mac OS X. Operating systems are just tools, get over it.
er, the ports system can never be bad when all you have to do is edit/usr/share/examples/cvsup/ports-supfile, then cvsup ports-supfile. I'm still running 2.2.8 boxes, and the ports tree for that still has the majority of the latest software. Ports are also updated pretty fast. Anything major should be available in the ports tree within hours (ex apache, php, most stuff in www, net, sysutils or security). ----------
"Linux distributions are usually a little more cutting edge"
Naw, ftp to current.freebsd.org sometime and pick up one of the daily snapshots of 4.0-CURRENT. Just as likely to crash your machine a 2.3.x is:)
I just think the problem is that the 2.2.x kernels were deemed -stable a little too early. I mean, 2.2.5 having a major memory leak, and there being major bugs in the tcp/ip stack? Not very fun if it's your mail server that is supposed to stay up all year. With the 2.2.x or 3.2.x distros of freebsd, you are sure to get a system that is rock solid.
Oh yeah, and i hope netfilter turns into something useful, because ipchains just sucks compared to ipfilter and portions of ipfw (i despise how ipfw is setup also).
"Linux distributions are usually a little more cutting edge"
Naw, ftp to current.freebsd.org sometime and pick up one of the daily snapshots of 4.0-CURRENT. Just as likely to crash your machine a 2.3.x is:)
I just think the problem is that the 2.2.x kernels were deemed -stable a little too early. I mean, 2.2.5 having a major memory leak, and there being major bugs in the tcp/ip stack? Not very fun if it's your mail server that is supposed to stay up all year. With the 2.2.x or 3.2.x distros of freebsd, you are sure to get a system that is rock solid.
Oh yeah, and i hope netfilter turns into something useful, because ipchains just sucks compared to ipfilter and portions of ipfw (i despise how ipfw is setup also).
First, I use just about every operating system there is -- for different purposes. I've installed FreeBSD and BSDi as stable internet gateways or boxes running any daemon under the sun. Under linux, this is possible also, although there have been questions in the past whether it scales properly. SMP is also crap on both systems (even in 2.3.x and 4.0-CURRENT thus far). They both have a long way to go.
In experience, FreeBSD has been more stable -- but only because half a year ago, you could say it was more advanced and stable. I'm sure everyone would agree now, that the Linux kernels are getting there. However, the thing is, you don't have to upgrade you kernel every other week. The problem is that recently there have been showstoppers in so called -stable kernels. I think the FreeBSD team has an advantage at that fact.
However, for most users, the differences they will see in operations will be negligible. I think it all comes down to user preference. The author of the article states that FreeBSD is obviously superior, but doesn't state why. I think he doesn't elaborate because he can't. Advocacy is ok, but this guy has a $%$%$ up war mentality.
I do, agree, that it is blurry as to what niche Linux AND FreeBSD are to fill. They do just about everything these days, but most things only average (other than strictly servers).
Does anyone know of another provider of frequency hopping spread spectrum with a decent internet link in the toronto area? (or any other wireless link for that matter) The only one I am aware of is mipps.net, and they recently raised their prices from 950 -> 1350 CDN for full duplex 2mbps, 1200 -> 1600 for 3mbps fd, and they also have just begun offering wireless 10mbps (no quoted prices). Although much cheaper than getting a t1 or 10mbps connection from any local or tier 1 provider, I have noticed that the radio link adds about 20ms. Not bad at all though. They also use Shaw fiberlink which is a pretty good ISP (multihomed in toronto with teleglobe, uunet canada, sprint-canda, bell, and @home).
This link has some very basic information. http://www.mipps.net/Technology/NETWORK_SECURITY_I N_A_WIRELESS/network_security_in_a_wirel ess.htm ----------
11. uunet canada, uunet africa 12. pair.com (exclusively) 13. teleglobe 14. globalserve 15. lightrealm 16. above.net 17. Ascend comm. 18. gamespot 19. internet direct 20. frontier 21. ZDNET austrailia 22. Lucent All in different capacities, but you get the idea. ----------
"I agree that FreeBSD is in deep trouble. And while FreeBSD is beset with its own internal strife, it is not the only BSD to be affected by this cancer"
Every time I see an article on slashdot pertaining to *bsd, this same person posts emotionally driven comments that are fundamentally flawed in assuming one argument on a mailing list is the downfall of all BSD (which I have yet to experience participating in FreeBSD newsgroups, or on #freebsd on efnet).
I believe this is what some are, today, fashionably calling FUD. ----------
I'm in israel now, for the summer, and here I see commercials with nudity all the time. I'm told this is how it is in many of these countries. Really, what's wrong with a kid seeing the natural form? Unless a movie goes to an extreme, I don't see what is wrong with it. You also can't say that it encourages kids, as over here the crime rates are a lot lower than even in canada. The question is, what do kids lose by seeing nudity on tv or in the movie theater? Nothing. They get a touch of reality.
Everything in our culture worships violence. If anyone hasn't noticed that a very large number of movies are violent. The entire action movie category, even movies in other categories. When we think of conflict, we think of violence. We don't think of some stupid 6 month court case, or a war of words where one person backs down. This entire problem came out of the shootings a couple of months ago -- which I will not name -- and some idiot thought that a kid watching the matrix was an attributable factor. This is so false.
I'd also like to say that I'm originally from Canada, and there they have rated AA ratings where you can get in a movie that would usually be rated R at 14. Canadians aren't perfect though. Just ask any canadian about the bs the CRTC is trying to pull.
Heh thats pretty weird, cause' I'm writing this message in X e + gnome on FreeBSD right now. I also have Civ: Call to power opened behind this window and really haven't run into many apps that I can't compile on FreeBSD (or use linux binaries). If I do have problems I usually go look in the ports collection instead. There, all you type is make install and it downloads the program, untars, automakes, and installs. It also keeps the package info so you can make deinstall or check what was installed by looking in/var/db/pkg. The ONLY thing I am missing on FreeBSD is vmware. Unfortunately FreeBSD can't emulate linux kernel modules, so I can't use vmware. Also, the SMP support is admittedly pretty ugly (even on BSDi 4.01), but we use solaris over here with 6 processor boxes if we want SMP. I haven't found linux SMP much better than FreeBSD 4.0 though.. they both need a lot of work.
Heh, i doubt cable companies are worrying about product differentiation unless there is a good dsl alternative in the area. The only reason they are offering cable service is so they can rake in 60 - 100 dollars a month from you now, instead of the 20 for just cable access. Of course, it cost them a lot to maybe upgrade the lines to 2-way if they didn't do it right the first time, but even in a year or two, they have completely covered the costs of that. Think about it. The average user uses far less than 128kbps.. actually less than 1k/s averaged over a day. If they can get 20% of a city with 150,000 people on their service at 40 dollars a month, they are making 30000 x 40 a month - expenses of support, upgrading infrastructure to keep up with an explosion in subscriber growth etc. To service an entire community they don't even need that much bandwidth. 6 - 20 mbps would be sufficent for most communities. I know my community has about 10,000 subscribers, and only uses an equivalent of 5 T1 lines -- however, it can get slow during peak hours.. but boy is it fast at 3am:). Anyway, my point was that they WILL be raking in the money in a very large way. Competition is definitely needed -- but shouldn't be completely open as to cut profit margins completely. They just need some competition to stay above the curve. Monopolistic behavior is natural, and the normal businessman will milk whatever they can get until they are coaxed into action by government or competition.
Actually it's just IP tunnelled over one 6mhz channel. The network is also switched and on the majority of the networks, the modem is a router, not a bridge. So you're just tunneling IP to the CMTS -- and you can't really directly contact other hosts on the network. The other setup is with a bridge like lancity products. They also switch it though, but you will still get multicast and broadcast packets. Both ways it is still shared on that one 6mhz channel however -- although access providers use traffic management software like OnAdvantage and whatever else. They will eventually be using QOS and different tiers in all areas (only heard of a few areas using QOS and DOCSIS capable modems thus far). But yeah, you could consider it a MAN I guess. I'll point out again though, that if another provider wanted in, they would be operating on another 6mhz channel -- not the one that the current provider is using. That way, they wouldn't have to share bandwidth. So the joining provider would just have to set up their own CMTS and fiber to the ATM card at the cable plant.
The issue itself is very controversial. However, the only way i see it getting dealt with is on an area basis. Some areas have had two way cable for a while -- so the cable company has long ago profited and gained the costs back from rolling that out. Therefore there should be no reason why government mandated competition shouldnt be introduced. However, in new areas they could just share the costs and put the lines side by side. An example of this is QWEST. They laid fiber for MCI Worldcom and a number of other companies right beside their own to offset the costs of building their gigantic network. If that can work, it will work on a scale as small as this.
In networks that need upgrading to two-way, though, there might be complications -- but ultimately, the cable monopoly should be forced to open a couple 6mhz channels for limited competition. They have been raking in millions and millions of dollars on cable tv and opening one or two channels won't really hurt their plans for the future (for one, integration of tv and net).
Heh, actually, the way net access goes over coax is through one 6mhz channel. Therefore they would only need one 6mhz channel. It would also not interfere with other channels. So if AOL wanted to offer cable internet, they would only need one 6mhz channel. If they wanted to offer phone service also, they may need another -- if they can't find a good way to do it over that first ip tunnel.
Yeah really. The AI looks to be even more simple than what is in that Jurassic Park: Lost World for the pc. In that game, dinosaurs balance danger to self, hunger, line-of-sight, territory, and probably some others that I forgot. Not that even that algorythm can even come close to any animal behavior -- even those operating purely on instinct.
My guess is that performance is a lot worse, considering DirectX is a lot better than SDL currently. Don't quote me though. I have only played with SDL briefly.
One problem that comes up again and again is having to wait around for delivery. They can't just drop this stuff on your porch. In other words -- to be successful -- the company *must* deliver on time. This simple fact has kept this "new economic" market out of the mainstream.
Another problem with providing other retail products for online consumption is that consumers want to see and expirement with the product. This goes for many product types such as: electronics (audio and video), clothes, furniture et al.
Despite this, though, markets such as car sales have flourished -- which is a surprise.
Opportunity gain:
1. convenient 2. better price information (can always check out competitors price with a click) 3. Possible that products may be cheaper in the future when infrastructure is streamlined enough that costs (shipping, information systems) are outweighed by mass economies of scale.
Opportunity Cost:
1. Waiting time for product (many retail purchases are based on impulse and/or an immediate want or need) 2. Possible shipping problems (including delays and not arriving on time) 3. loss of information (customer may want to see and touch the product, turn it on, test it etc.)
Of course, this doesn't exactly apply to undifferentiated, inelastic markets such as groceries -- but it is food for thought (uh, pun intended).
In some ways, the grocery market is simpler than one with Walmart like products. This is because the demand for food is inelastic -- so consumer trends will be largely static. All they have to do is gain consumer loyalty and iron out shipping problems.
Slashdot Mirror
Um, for one. All of these boxes hotmail and yahoo are running are only going to have http ports open. So the only problem they are going to have to worry about is with the httpd. No one is going to root a box with userland programs if they can never log in.
----------
Give me a break. The CRTC may inhibit Canadian choice in media by forcing us to view a certain percentage of Canadian material -- but beyond that, there is no draconian censorship. If you've ever gone to the movies in the United States, then canada -- you notice that the majority of movies that are rated R in the US are 14aa in Canada. Why? Because it's stupid to regulate such things. As for pornographic censorship, I'd like to see this instance and any case law. If you followed the news 3 months ago, the supreme court even let off some prick with kiddie porn in his house because he had a right to have whatever he wanted in it (should be eventually overturned). Fuck up, yes. But that just proves that Canada has a serious vested interest of protecting our privacy and freedoms. I mean, the supreme court was almost willing to let this guy off because of the precedence the case could set in other areas.
Anyway, as for competition laws, it does make some sense. My cable provider has been nice, but I hear horror stories of users of rogers cable. In every area that got sympatico adsl -- that also had rogers cable -- everyone i know switched over because of the terrible service. Unfortunately though, this is the case for many of the MSO's in the united states using @home also. RR & Mediaone seem to be fine, however.
----------
Actually, cable internet is not even close to a net loss -- unless your cable provider is too cheap to even set up bidirectional connections for viewer guide and instant ppv services. True, it does take a lot of capital to initially upgrade the network, but in the long run they will be making a nice profit. The average user using high speed access uses 1/4 less than a dialup user would being connected all day downloading at 3KB/s. The speed may come in bursts, but you read the page longer than you load them, dont you? As for needing huge backbones to connect the modems to the internet, that isn't true. Its a misconception because so many people have the potential to use bandwidth at the same time -- but they dont. If its a really small town they could get off with 2 -5 t1's at the best commodities of scale.
----------
heh. too bad you arent using shaw :). I've had perfect service since 1996. I only recall one month where they were having growing pains, but it has been great ever since. They actually resegment their networks and increase provider bandwidth before a problem arises.
:). Shaw btw, is also the largest MSO cable provider in north america right now (from user count that is). Too bad rogers didn't do it right the first time and only use @home's connections for the value added www page instead of really really crappy peering at overloaded naps.
They also have multiple connections to sprint-canada, uunet canada, @home, teleglobe. I feel for you rogers users stuck routing through mae and sprint-nap. I really do
----------
Ok. 1. FreeBSD also has a package system that allows you to install binaries. (try /stand/sysinstall) 2. Many compile time options. IE. I wanted to compile the newest vesion of apache -- but you can't just get binaries with both mod_perl and php compiled in -- so i just cd to /usr/ports/www/apache13-php3 and compiled apache13+php3+modssl+freetype with the 'make' command; then compiled in mod_perl, then did make install. There are also many programs that I run into that I like to modify before installing. 3. You are right though, that compiling wasted precious time and cpu. I, however, prefer being able to modify settings before compile and install. Large programs like X, though, I'll just install from /stand/sysinstall.
----------
A less than compelling article. The author draws many false conclusions. This sounds like some people i know that use metaphors completely out of context in an argument to sway the feeble minded. Like many people have said in this forum before: It's the PR, not how the actual product works :). For almost a year now I have been hearing that Linux is going to replace the windows desktop -- and anyone who has actually used it knows that Windows definitely knows it is the better desktop system currently.
----------
Yeah, especially when it's the net link that is maxing -- not the processsor, amount of memory, or the os.
Can you say duh?
----------
Um, please don't use they. I'm tired of these stereotypes and general comments. Advocacy like that, is just stupid. He should have either backed up his comments or kept them to himself. And yes, I am a FreeBSD user who also happens to use Linux, aix, solaris, irix, netbsd, windows 95, windows nt, and even a little Mac OS X. Operating systems are just tools, get over it.
.
----------
er, the ports system can never be bad when all you have to do is edit /usr/share/examples/cvsup/ports-supfile, then cvsup ports-supfile. I'm still running 2.2.8 boxes, and the ports tree for that still has the majority of the latest software. Ports are also updated pretty fast. Anything major should be available in the ports tree within hours (ex apache, php, most stuff in www, net, sysutils or security).
----------
"Linux distributions are usually a little more cutting edge"
:)
Naw, ftp to current.freebsd.org sometime and pick up one of the daily snapshots of 4.0-CURRENT. Just as likely to crash your machine a 2.3.x is
I just think the problem is that the 2.2.x kernels were deemed -stable a little too early. I mean, 2.2.5 having a major memory leak, and there being major bugs in the tcp/ip stack? Not very fun if it's your mail server that is supposed to stay up all year. With the 2.2.x or 3.2.x distros of freebsd, you are sure to get a system that is rock solid.
Oh yeah, and i hope netfilter turns into something useful, because ipchains just sucks compared to ipfilter and portions of ipfw (i despise how ipfw is setup also).
----------
"Linux distributions are usually a little more cutting edge"
:)
Naw, ftp to current.freebsd.org sometime and pick up one of the daily snapshots of 4.0-CURRENT. Just as likely to crash your machine a 2.3.x is
I just think the problem is that the 2.2.x kernels were deemed -stable a little too early. I mean, 2.2.5 having a major memory leak, and there being major bugs in the tcp/ip stack? Not very fun if it's your mail server that is supposed to stay up all year. With the 2.2.x or 3.2.x distros of freebsd, you are sure to get a system that is rock solid.
Oh yeah, and i hope netfilter turns into something useful, because ipchains just sucks compared to ipfilter and portions of ipfw (i despise how ipfw is setup also).
----------
I find the mailing list archives on www.freebsd.org answer more questions than anywhere else...
Might be a good idea to Check them out.
----------
First, I use just about every operating system there is -- for different purposes. I've installed FreeBSD and BSDi as stable internet gateways or boxes running any daemon under the sun. Under linux, this is possible also, although there have been questions in the past whether it scales properly. SMP is also crap on both systems (even in 2.3.x and 4.0-CURRENT thus far). They both have a long way to go.
In experience, FreeBSD has been more stable -- but only because half a year ago, you could say it was more advanced and stable. I'm sure everyone would agree now, that the Linux kernels are getting there. However, the thing is, you don't have to upgrade you kernel every other week. The problem is that recently there have been showstoppers in so called -stable kernels. I think the FreeBSD team has an advantage at that fact.
However, for most users, the differences they will see in operations will be negligible. I think it all comes down to user preference.
The author of the article states that FreeBSD is obviously superior, but doesn't state why. I think he doesn't elaborate because he can't. Advocacy is ok, but this guy has a $%$%$ up war mentality.
I do, agree, that it is blurry as to what niche Linux AND FreeBSD are to fill. They do just about everything these days, but most things only average (other than strictly servers).
----------
Does anyone know of another provider of frequency hopping spread spectrum with a decent internet link in the toronto area? (or any other wireless link for that matter) The only one I am aware of is mipps.net, and they recently raised their prices from 950 -> 1350 CDN for full duplex 2mbps, 1200 -> 1600 for 3mbps fd, and they also have just begun offering wireless 10mbps (no quoted prices). Although much cheaper than getting a t1 or 10mbps connection from any local or tier 1 provider, I have noticed that the radio link adds about 20ms. Not bad at all though. They also use Shaw fiberlink which is a pretty good ISP (multihomed in toronto with teleglobe, uunet canada, sprint-canda, bell, and @home).
I N_A_WIRELESS/network_security_in_a_wirel ess.htm
This link has some very basic information.
http://www.mipps.net/Technology/NETWORK_SECURITY_
----------
11. uunet canada, uunet africa 12. pair.com (exclusively) 13. teleglobe 14. globalserve 15. lightrealm 16. above.net 17. Ascend comm. 18. gamespot 19. internet direct 20. frontier 21. ZDNET austrailia 22. Lucent All in different capacities, but you get the idea.
----------
Sure there buddy.
"I agree that FreeBSD is in deep trouble. And while FreeBSD is beset with its own internal strife, it is not the only BSD to be affected by this cancer"
Every time I see an article on slashdot pertaining to *bsd, this same person posts emotionally driven comments that are fundamentally flawed in assuming one argument on a mailing list is the downfall of all BSD (which I have yet to experience participating in FreeBSD newsgroups, or on #freebsd on efnet).
I believe this is what some are, today, fashionably calling FUD.
----------
I'm in israel now, for the summer, and here I see commercials with nudity all the time. I'm told this is how it is in many of these countries. Really, what's wrong with a kid seeing the natural form? Unless a movie goes to an extreme, I don't see what is wrong with it. You also can't say that it encourages kids, as over here the crime rates are a lot lower than even in canada. The question is, what do kids lose by seeing nudity on tv or in the movie theater? Nothing. They get a touch of reality.
Everything in our culture worships violence. If anyone hasn't noticed that a very large number of movies are violent. The entire action movie category, even movies in other categories. When we think of conflict, we think of violence. We don't think of some stupid 6 month court case, or a war of words where one person backs down. This entire problem came out of the shootings a couple of months ago -- which I will not name -- and some idiot thought that a kid watching the matrix was an attributable factor. This is so false.
I'd also like to say that I'm originally from Canada, and there they have rated AA ratings where you can get in a movie that would usually be rated R at 14. Canadians aren't perfect though. Just ask any canadian about the bs the CRTC is trying to pull.
Yeah, FreeBSD can emulate SCO binaries.. I've used oracle for SCO with it -- it is annoying to have to add shared memory though.
Heh thats pretty weird, cause' I'm writing this message in X e + gnome on FreeBSD right now. I also have Civ: Call to power opened behind this window and really haven't run into many apps that I can't compile on FreeBSD (or use linux binaries). If I do have problems I usually go look in the ports collection instead. There, all you type is make install and it downloads the program, untars, automakes, and installs. It also keeps the package info so you can make deinstall or check what was installed by looking in /var/db/pkg. The ONLY thing I am missing on FreeBSD is vmware. Unfortunately FreeBSD can't emulate linux kernel modules, so I can't use vmware. Also, the SMP support is admittedly pretty ugly (even on BSDi 4.01), but we use solaris over here with 6 processor boxes if we want SMP. I haven't found linux SMP much better than FreeBSD 4.0 though.. they both need a lot of work.
Heh, i doubt cable companies are worrying about product differentiation unless there is a good dsl alternative in the area. The only reason they are offering cable service is so they can rake in 60 - 100 dollars a month from you now, instead of the 20 for just cable access. Of course, it cost them a lot to maybe upgrade the lines to 2-way if they didn't do it right the first time, but even in a year or two, they have completely covered the costs of that. Think about it. The average user uses far less than 128kbps.. actually less than 1k/s averaged over a day. If they can get 20% of a city with 150,000 people on their service at 40 dollars a month, they are making 30000 x 40 a month - expenses of support, upgrading infrastructure to keep up with an explosion in subscriber growth etc. To service an entire community they don't even need that much bandwidth. 6 - 20 mbps would be sufficent for most communities. I know my community has about 10,000 subscribers, and only uses an equivalent of 5 T1 lines -- however, it can get slow during peak hours.. but boy is it fast at 3am :). Anyway, my point was that they WILL be raking in the money in a very large way. Competition is definitely needed -- but shouldn't be completely open as to cut profit margins completely. They just need some competition to stay above the curve. Monopolistic behavior is natural, and the normal businessman will milk whatever they can get until they are coaxed into action by government or competition.
Actually it's just IP tunnelled over one 6mhz channel. The network is also switched and on the majority of the networks, the modem is a router, not a bridge. So you're just tunneling IP to the CMTS -- and you can't really directly contact other hosts on the network. The other setup is with a bridge like lancity products. They also switch it though, but you will still get multicast and broadcast packets. Both ways it is still shared on that one 6mhz channel however -- although access providers use traffic management software like OnAdvantage and whatever else. They will eventually be using QOS and different tiers in all areas (only heard of a few areas using QOS and DOCSIS capable modems thus far). But yeah, you could consider it a MAN I guess. I'll point out again though, that if another provider wanted in, they would be operating on another 6mhz channel -- not the one that the current provider is using. That way, they wouldn't have to share bandwidth. So the joining provider would just have to set up their own CMTS and fiber to the ATM card at the cable plant.
The issue itself is very controversial. However, the only way i see it getting dealt with is on an area basis. Some areas have had two way cable for a while -- so the cable company has long ago profited and gained the costs back from rolling that out. Therefore there should be no reason why government mandated competition shouldnt be introduced. However, in new areas they could just share the costs and put the lines side by side. An example of this is QWEST. They laid fiber for MCI Worldcom and a number of other companies right beside their own to offset the costs of building their gigantic network. If that can work, it will work on a scale as small as this.
In networks that need upgrading to two-way, though, there might be complications -- but ultimately, the cable monopoly should be forced to open a couple 6mhz channels for limited competition. They have been raking in millions and millions of dollars on cable tv and opening one or two channels won't really hurt their plans for the future (for one, integration of tv and net).
Heh, actually, the way net access goes over coax is through one 6mhz channel. Therefore they would only need one 6mhz channel. It would also not interfere with other channels. So if AOL wanted to offer cable internet, they would only need one 6mhz channel. If they wanted to offer phone service also, they may need another -- if they can't find a good way to do it over that first ip tunnel.
Yeah really. The AI looks to be even more simple than what is in that Jurassic Park: Lost World for the pc. In that game, dinosaurs balance danger to self, hunger, line-of-sight, territory, and probably some others that I forgot. Not that even that algorythm can even come close to any animal behavior -- even those operating purely on instinct.
My guess is that performance is a lot worse, considering DirectX is a lot better than SDL currently. Don't quote me though. I have only played with SDL briefly.
One problem that comes up again and again is having to wait around for delivery. They can't just drop this stuff on your porch. In other words -- to be successful -- the company *must* deliver on time. This simple fact has kept this "new economic" market out of the mainstream.
Another problem with providing other retail products for online consumption is that consumers want to see and expirement with the product. This goes for many product types such as: electronics (audio and video), clothes, furniture et al.
Despite this, though, markets such as car sales have flourished -- which is a surprise.
Opportunity gain:
1. convenient
2. better price information (can always check out competitors price with a click)
3. Possible that products may be cheaper in the future when infrastructure is streamlined enough that costs (shipping, information systems) are outweighed by mass economies of scale.
Opportunity Cost:
1. Waiting time for product (many retail purchases are based on impulse and/or an immediate want or need)
2. Possible shipping problems (including delays and not arriving on time)
3. loss of information (customer may want to see and touch the product, turn it on, test it etc.)
Of course, this doesn't exactly apply to undifferentiated, inelastic markets such as groceries -- but it is food for thought (uh, pun intended).
In some ways, the grocery market is simpler than one with Walmart like products. This is because the demand for food is inelastic -- so consumer trends will be largely static. All they have to do is gain consumer loyalty and iron out shipping problems.