Apart from the question of how long various forms of media last, don't forget that hardware becomes obsolete too.
I still have the odd (analogue) 1" video tape, but I don't know of a machine to play them on outside the local TV station.
Whatever method you use now, you're going to have to be prepared to re-invest in new technology periodically and be prepared to copy the whole lot while you still have working hardware...
Judging by most of the job adverts I'm reading at the moment (I'm in the process of closing down an IT company I've been running for more than a decade and will need an alternative source of income) don't require IT "professionals", they require IT "tradesmen" with specific and transient skills to nurse equipment from a small number of vendors.
When I graduated, back in the days when punched cards and paper tape were still common, there was no single vendor dominance of vast swathes of the IT industry and it was therefore important to teach people the principles of Computer Science - algorithms, algorithmic complexity, computational methods, principles of machine operations, operating system design, relational database design - rather than turning out people familiar with Windows, C++ and Oracle knowledge.
People with those fundamental skills have much greater adaptability and potential career longevity - after all, very little has changed in the fundamentals in the last 25 years although superficial things have changed considerably. I can quite happily pick up a book and start programming in C# or Java if I need to; on the other hand, the graduates I've had in recently for interview can competently operate Visual Studio but seem rather hazy about balanced trees, queues or the performance implications of changing privilege modes on the average CPU. And perhaps they don't need to - some library or "wizard" will hide the difficult bits in some way no-one will quite understand, but probably won't break until the original coder has moved on.
It seems employers don't want people with "fundamental" skills who can adapt to changing technologies, they want an MSIE/CNAA/xyz who can deal with a specific problem at a specific point in time and whom they can replace later on with someone with a different "qualification" when their needs change.
Unforunately, universities seem to have commoditised their graduate programmes to churn out tradesmen in contemporarily fashionable skills to supply the job market as it exists rather than fulfilling their traditional roles of providing the foundations for lifelong professional development.
It's no wonder that people aren't going in for these kind of courses, knowing their career lifetimes are likely to be relatively short and tied to the waxing and waning fortunes of manufacturers.
If you want to work in a trade, you can earn considerably more being a plumber or electrician than working in IT. I'm seriously considering it.
If you want to be an "IT professional", the opportunities to do so are few and far between. You're probably better advised to find a nice Open Source Software project to work on in your spare time...
... are now asking questions that require approximate or probabilistic answers
I suspect that may translate as "most of our clients want to be given easy answers to difficult questions".
I'm sure there'd be a big market for a database system that stored flight bookings and could answer the question "which of our customers is a terrorist?". You don't address that market with new technology, though, but by developing new sources of snake oil.
In a lot of cases, cryptographically strong passwords are not really required.
It's always amused me that online access to my credit card account requires an unmemorable 8 digit number, a username and a password. However, the *worst* thing anyone gaining access to that account could do (apart from see how I've been spending my money) is to pay my bills for me. I really don't think much protection is required to stop people doing that.
Most of the things that I might reasonably want to protect are in my house. My house does not have cryptographically-strong access protection, it has a key someone could take and copy if they wished and a lock that could be picked. Several people other than myself have keys. It is also not immune to access via brute-force algorithms - and indeed someone did once manage to split the front door in two in the course of a burglary.
In most cases what is required are "reasonable" checks to make sure that unauthorised access is not trivial, "reasonable" deniability that the user is responsible for any loss arising from unauthorised access, and "reasonable" insurance to pay for the damage. Focusing simply on the first of these may obscure the issue.
The International Federation of Pornographic Industries launches a code of practice for makers of storage devices.
Said Mr Dick Fiddler, spokesman for the group: "Our members are constantly at work providing popular entertainment which paying customers come to again and again. However we're being screwed by people pulling it off over the network."
It's understood that a deal is being brokered whereby storage device drivers will monitor files for images containing fleshtones and report any substantial quantity as a potential infringement.
"These people are not just abusing us, they're abusing themselves", said Mr Fiddler. Asked what kind of devices were being targeted he replied "we don't care if they're hard or floppy, we just want our money".
The number of Linux *desktops* in "corporate" environments is vanishingly small, so I don't know how any responses could be statistically significant.
Linux *servers* will be more in evidence, but the role they play will vary significantly. In smaller companies, they may well be used for file and print services. In larger companies, they probably won't because AD makes much more sense in that environment. Mostly, Linux servers will be web servers and the TCO will depend almost entirely on the type of application you're trying to build and the development and support time using the chosen tools (J2EE/PHP/CGI/Perl/bash...).
So for *most* Linux deployments, it's not a question of Windows vs Linux, but the TCO of Visual Studio/SQLServer/IIS vs Websphere or some FOSS solution.
Which might explain why the survey "reveals" so little...
Back in the dying days of DEC, the company suddenly started getting concerned about shutting stable doors around its IPR and "encouraging" patent filing.
My name appeared on a filing for a patent on something to do with network management, on which I'd been working. The application was sufficiently convoluted in impenetrable patent legalese that I really couldn't work out *what* the patent claims were, whether they were novel in any way or exactly how I was supposed to have contributed to them. The patent *could* have been a description of something I'd worked on; it could have been a description of almost anything. However, the patent lawyer assured the "inventors" it was carefully drafted to reflect the language required by the patent office and was all entirely above board. Though the patent lawyer couldn't quite explain what the patent was about in terms *I* could understand, which was a bit of a concern.
Despite my doubts, I was obliged to seek out a Notary Public (a rare beast in the UK) and attest to my heroic part in this revolutionary new invention because it was made fairly clear that if I didn't my future employment prospects would not be rosy.
I don't know if the patent was granted - I didn't stay around that long. Whether it's valid is pretty irrelevant now, of course.
I'm sure Microsoft wouldn't be so heavy handed of course, but people's names don't always appear on patent applications of their own volition. And interestingly, none of the people involved in the process were knowingly fraudulent. The lawyers didn't understand the technology and the technologists didn't understand the law. Neither of them really knew what the implications of the claims were. And provided that the number of patent filings went up, the management weren't interested in what was actually in the applications...
Good question. Every time I look at the site to see how it's doing, what's implemented and what's not I go cross-eyed. And elsewhere.
Which is a shame, because the.NET environment is fundamentally very well designed and, despite its origins in the evil empire, actually has a lot going for it. And Mono should give the FOSS movement a chance to play their own game of "Embrace and Extend".
Do you have to pay royalties for accessing a Web server?
As I read the Windows server licence, you may well do. Although Windows 2003 Web Server Edition has no per-user licensing requirements, the standard version of 2003 Server Client Access Licensing Requirements say (my emphasis):
Windows CALs are not required when access to the server software is
unauthenticated and conducted through the Internet
The implication is that if you carry out a browsing session which is authenticated against a Windows user account - or indeed accessed from a local network - that you *do* pay royalties for accessing the server.
You might be able to patent some aspects of a network protocol, but probably very few in this case since there's so much prior art and similarity.
You would certainly be able to copyright an implementation of a network protocol, but no-one is asking Microsoft to provide source code.
Microsoft appears to be wanting to protect "IP" which does not consist of patents or copyright, but "trade secrets".
The EU has decided the "trade secrets" need to be disclosed to prevent an abusive monopoly. Microsoft is attempting to limit the disclosure by placing constraints on the copyrights of the licensees: this affects the licensees rights to do whatever they want with their own code and therefore perpetuates the abuse.
The EU isn't asking Microsoft to give up its patents or copyrights; unfortunately for Microsoft, it doesn't have any real protection for its network protocols other than the current lack of documentation, hence the foot-dragging.
I've spent about 3 days trying to burn a relatively simple CD while Panther has frozen, or simply said "Can't do that" and then locked a CD in a slot-loading drive, removable only by booting into Open Firmware. Mac OS only "just works" if you want to do something Apple anticipated. Otherwise, it doesn't even get as far as *just* working.
Apple is too fascinated by its appearance and Microsoft is too fascinated by its earnings. Not a lot to choose, in the end.
Since Microsoft is apparently planning to require some sort of registration/authentication even of Windows 2K systems before delivering future updates, you'll have the same issue whichever version you use...
I'd second that. I know a couple of people who work for ERP companies. The systems are often installed on the orders of senior management who don't actually understand how the business processes work in their own organisations.
Consequently, the ERP systems, despite lots of expensive customisation, may often integrate poorly with the business they are supposed to facilitate. If the front line staff have the flexibility, they work round the ERP system and get the business done anyway, though the information the managers receive is junk. If there is no such flexibility, the impact on the bottom line can be quite serious (see under HP).
But that goes for most software used in a commercial environment - there's usually some area in which the business has to adapt to the strictures of the software. Some ERP salesmen would have you believe otherwise, though.
Er. There is no such thing as a "geographic VoIP number" in the UK.
You can make it appear to "work" by redirecting the call from the PSTN, but that's a model which requires the terminating network to pick up costs for both the PSTN and IP legs of the call and that cost has to be passed on somehow.
Only if there is a universally-implemented standard (such as storing phone numbers in DNS) which would allow the ORIGINATING network to route the call over IP could you reduce costs rather than increase them. There are proposals, but they're a long way from univeral implementation...
The smaller VoIP operators in the UK are issuing numbers beginning with 0870. These are non-geographic numbers which are charged at the basic long-distance rate from wherever you call. However, since these calls are excluded from the discounts offered by most carriers on regular long-distance calls, there is some (small) surplus revenue which gets shared with the VoIP service provider and which pays for some of their costs. Change provider, lose your number as that revenue stream gets choked off.
There is also a block of numbers with the 07 prefix allocated for "personal" numbers - numbers that follow you to wherever you happen to be. These are charged at mobile rates, which accounts for their relative lack of uptake: you might as well have a mobile phone in your pocket than keep redirecting the "personal" number to your nearest landline as you move about.
A new block of numbers has provisionally been allocated for VoIP, but apart from BT, no-one really seems yet to be using it.
However, the point about all of these numbers is that they cost more to call than a regular landline. Some cost more than others, but they all cost more.
Part of this is due to the fact that the telephone network is built to map numbers to physical equipment. There can be several local telephone service providers in the same geographic area and they're required to allow customers to move their numbers between competitors. The only way this can happen is for the calls to go to the network which orginally allocated the number and for it then to be bounced on to the new terminating network: this is a cost to the network with whom the customer is no longer doing business.
The same technological constraint applies to non-geographic numbers: someone has to own and operate the terminating equipment for the dialled number and then relay the call on to a "genuine" landline. However, in this case, the telco gets to charge for its services. Which is why the calls cost more.
The same thing is true for landline calls to VoIP numbers: they have to go to terminating equipment somewhere and hop off onto the IP network. If you want to change your provider and keep your number, someone has to pay to keep that terminating equipment in place. That someone is probably you.
Of course, it would be possible to re-engineer the phone networks so that the whole of the number you dial is looked up to make the routing decision rather than the first few digits, but look back a few years at the problem of growing Internet routing tables and remember why CIDR was invented.
The real solution is an alpha keypad you can type your domain name on...
Don't know about the US, but in the UK I'm pretty sure it's illegal to provide transit/termination for third party calls unless you have a telecommunications operator licence.
Most people want a phone that will reliably connect them to any number they dial - similar reasons explain why http://www.tpc.int/ is never going to be the average person's choice of fax service.
When your clothes have RFID chips and your passport and driving license and you're in an environment where everything else has been chipped, are the scanners going to be able to pick up anything but noise?
Despite having a 2.6 kernel (which in theory includes the DVB drivers) and a weekend to spare, I still failed to get anywhere close to getting vdr running. It does *not* support receving and replaying DVB-T with any readily-available DVB-T card. It will fully support DVB-T with such cards *only* if a DVB-S card with MPEG decoder is also present *or* at the cost of some considerable further complication and reduced functionality if you also have an old DXR-3 card or a Hauppauge MediaMVP.
I suspect the Siemens box will have a lower total cost than the vdr solution and will have the considerable advantage of being installed by simply plugging in the power.
We will all go together, wait and see
Though the means still remains a mystery
We may drown or choke or stifle
So if you don't own a rifle
Throw yourself beneath your neigbour's SUV
As most people in the UK who get broadband do so via their (regulated) phone line, regulating VoIP too would be overkill: most people will still have their emergency service via their regular phone and be able to make other calls in the same way.
When/if there is significant competition for the "last mile", I'm sure regulation will be revisited.
Last time I checked, there was nothing stopping people composing their own music.
The record companies may be greedy monopolistic talent processors and their tactics akin to legalised gangsterism, but their product is not critical to life. If you're sufficient of an idiot to pay for "personalised" phone covers and ringtones, you deserve exploiting.
Learn to "personalise" it yourself, rather than borrowing someone else's personality.
"We saw what would happen with Voice over Internet Protocol. Rather than allow it to happen to us, we decided to embrace the technology," a BT spokesman said.
This would be the same BT that provides the infrastructure for the vast majority of broadband connections in the UK. I think you could translate this statement as:
Rather than get diminishing revenue from our legacy copper as call prices continue to fall, let's get more money out of people by charging them for broadband AS WELL AS FOR PHONE CALLS.
If you factor in the line rental (which you pay to have the copper in your house so you can get broadband), the cost of the broadband service itself and then the cost of BT's VoIP service, most BT subscribers would be better off using their phone to make phone calls...
Which, if you think about the economics of it all, makes perfect sense.
Slashdot Mirror
Apart from the question of how long various forms of media last, don't forget that hardware becomes obsolete too.
I still have the odd (analogue) 1" video tape, but I don't know of a machine to play them on outside the local TV station.
Whatever method you use now, you're going to have to be prepared to re-invest in new technology periodically and be prepared to copy the whole lot while you still have working hardware...
Judging by most of the job adverts I'm reading at the moment (I'm in the process of closing down an IT company I've been running for more than a decade and will need an alternative source of income) don't require IT "professionals", they require IT "tradesmen" with specific and transient skills to nurse equipment from a small number of vendors.
When I graduated, back in the days when punched cards and paper tape were still common, there was no single vendor dominance of vast swathes of the IT industry and it was therefore important to teach people the principles of Computer Science - algorithms, algorithmic complexity, computational methods, principles of machine operations, operating system design, relational database design - rather than turning out people familiar with Windows, C++ and Oracle knowledge.
People with those fundamental skills have much greater adaptability and potential career longevity - after all, very little has changed in the fundamentals in the last 25 years although superficial things have changed considerably. I can quite happily pick up a book and start programming in C# or Java if I need to; on the other hand, the graduates I've had in recently for interview can competently operate Visual Studio but seem rather hazy about balanced trees, queues or the performance implications of changing privilege modes on the average CPU. And perhaps they don't need to - some library or "wizard" will hide the difficult bits in some way no-one will quite understand, but probably won't break until the original coder has moved on.
It seems employers don't want people with "fundamental" skills who can adapt to changing technologies, they want an MSIE/CNAA/xyz who can deal with a specific problem at a specific point in time and whom they can replace later on with someone with a different "qualification" when their needs change.
Unforunately, universities seem to have commoditised their graduate programmes to churn out tradesmen in contemporarily fashionable skills to supply the job market as it exists rather than fulfilling their traditional roles of providing the foundations for lifelong professional development.
It's no wonder that people aren't going in for these kind of courses, knowing their career lifetimes are likely to be relatively short and tied to the waxing and waning fortunes of manufacturers.
If you want to work in a trade, you can earn considerably more being a plumber or electrician than working in IT. I'm seriously considering it.
If you want to be an "IT professional", the opportunities to do so are few and far between. You're probably better advised to find a nice Open Source Software project to work on in your spare time...
I suspect that may translate as "most of our clients want to be given easy answers to difficult questions".
I'm sure there'd be a big market for a database system that stored flight bookings and could answer the question "which of our customers is a terrorist?". You don't address that market with new technology, though, but by developing new sources of snake oil.
I'm sure, then, you can tell me precisely where I can find that feature without my providing any further information.
Not being able to imagine something does not make it untrue.
Pay my credit card bills. The system makes no provision to charge amounts to the card and does not reveal the card number or expiration date.
In a lot of cases, cryptographically strong passwords are not really required.
It's always amused me that online access to my credit card account requires an unmemorable 8 digit number, a username and a password. However, the *worst* thing anyone gaining access to that account could do (apart from see how I've been spending my money) is to pay my bills for me. I really don't think much protection is required to stop people doing that.
Most of the things that I might reasonably want to protect are in my house. My house does not have cryptographically-strong access protection, it has a key someone could take and copy if they wished and a lock that could be picked. Several people other than myself have keys. It is also not immune to access via brute-force algorithms - and indeed someone did once manage to split the front door in two in the course of a burglary.
In most cases what is required are "reasonable" checks to make sure that unauthorised access is not trivial, "reasonable" deniability that the user is responsible for any loss arising from unauthorised access, and "reasonable" insurance to pay for the damage. Focusing simply on the first of these may obscure the issue.
The International Federation of Pornographic Industries launches a code of practice for makers of storage devices.
Said Mr Dick Fiddler, spokesman for the group: "Our members are constantly at work providing popular entertainment which paying customers come to again and again. However we're being screwed by people pulling it off over the network."
It's understood that a deal is being brokered whereby storage device drivers will monitor files for images containing fleshtones and report any substantial quantity as a potential infringement.
"These people are not just abusing us, they're abusing themselves", said Mr Fiddler. Asked what kind of devices were being targeted he replied "we don't care if they're hard or floppy, we just want our money".
What's a "corporate computing environment"?
The number of Linux *desktops* in "corporate" environments is vanishingly small, so I don't know how any responses could be statistically significant.
Linux *servers* will be more in evidence, but the role they play will vary significantly. In smaller companies, they may well be used for file and print services. In larger companies, they probably won't because AD makes much more sense in that environment. Mostly, Linux servers will be web servers and the TCO will depend almost entirely on the type of application you're trying to build and the development and support time using the chosen tools (J2EE/PHP/CGI/Perl/bash...).
So for *most* Linux deployments, it's not a question of Windows vs Linux, but the TCO of Visual Studio/SQLServer/IIS vs Websphere or some FOSS solution.
Which might explain why the survey "reveals" so little...
Back in the dying days of DEC, the company suddenly started getting concerned about shutting stable doors around its IPR and "encouraging" patent filing.
My name appeared on a filing for a patent on something to do with network management, on which I'd been working. The application was sufficiently convoluted in impenetrable patent legalese that I really couldn't work out *what* the patent claims were, whether they were novel in any way or exactly how I was supposed to have contributed to them. The patent *could* have been a description of something I'd worked on; it could have been a description of almost anything. However, the patent lawyer assured the "inventors" it was carefully drafted to reflect the language required by the patent office and was all entirely above board. Though the patent lawyer couldn't quite explain what the patent was about in terms *I* could understand, which was a bit of a concern.
Despite my doubts, I was obliged to seek out a Notary Public (a rare beast in the UK) and attest to my heroic part in this revolutionary new invention because it was made fairly clear that if I didn't my future employment prospects would not be rosy.
I don't know if the patent was granted - I didn't stay around that long. Whether it's valid is pretty irrelevant now, of course.
I'm sure Microsoft wouldn't be so heavy handed of course, but people's names don't always appear on patent applications of their own volition. And interestingly, none of the people involved in the process were knowingly fraudulent. The lawyers didn't understand the technology and the technologists didn't understand the law. Neither of them really knew what the implications of the claims were. And provided that the number of patent filings went up, the management weren't interested in what was actually in the applications...
Good question. Every time I look at the site to see how it's doing, what's implemented and what's not I go cross-eyed. And elsewhere.
.NET environment is fundamentally very well designed and, despite its origins in the evil empire, actually has a lot going for it. And Mono should give the FOSS movement a chance to play their own game of "Embrace and Extend".
Which is a shame, because the
As I read the Windows server licence, you may well do. Although Windows 2003 Web Server Edition has no per-user licensing requirements, the standard version of 2003 Server Client Access Licensing Requirements say (my emphasis):
The implication is that if you carry out a browsing session which is authenticated against a Windows user account - or indeed accessed from a local network - that you *do* pay royalties for accessing the server.You might be able to patent some aspects of a network protocol, but probably very few in this case since there's so much prior art and similarity.
You would certainly be able to copyright an implementation of a network protocol, but no-one is asking Microsoft to provide source code.
Microsoft appears to be wanting to protect "IP" which does not consist of patents or copyright, but "trade secrets".
The EU has decided the "trade secrets" need to be disclosed to prevent an abusive monopoly. Microsoft is attempting to limit the disclosure by placing constraints on the copyrights of the licensees: this affects the licensees rights to do whatever they want with their own code and therefore perpetuates the abuse.
The EU isn't asking Microsoft to give up its patents or copyrights; unfortunately for Microsoft, it doesn't have any real protection for its network protocols other than the current lack of documentation, hence the foot-dragging.
... when it fails.
I've spent about 3 days trying to burn a relatively simple CD while Panther has frozen, or simply said "Can't do that" and then locked a CD in a slot-loading drive, removable only by booting into Open Firmware. Mac OS only "just works" if you want to do something Apple anticipated. Otherwise, it doesn't even get as far as *just* working.
Apple is too fascinated by its appearance and Microsoft is too fascinated by its earnings. Not a lot to choose, in the end.
Since Microsoft is apparently planning to require some sort of registration/authentication even of Windows 2K systems before delivering future updates, you'll have the same issue whichever version you use...
I'd second that. I know a couple of people who work for ERP companies. The systems are often installed on the orders of senior management who don't actually understand how the business processes work in their own organisations.
Consequently, the ERP systems, despite lots of expensive customisation, may often integrate poorly with the business they are supposed to facilitate. If the front line staff have the flexibility, they work round the ERP system and get the business done anyway, though the information the managers receive is junk. If there is no such flexibility, the impact on the bottom line can be quite serious (see under HP).
But that goes for most software used in a commercial environment - there's usually some area in which the business has to adapt to the strictures of the software. Some ERP salesmen would have you believe otherwise, though.
Er. There is no such thing as a "geographic VoIP number" in the UK.
You can make it appear to "work" by redirecting the call from the PSTN, but that's a model which requires the terminating network to pick up costs for both the PSTN and IP legs of the call and that cost has to be passed on somehow.
Only if there is a universally-implemented standard (such as storing phone numbers in DNS) which would allow the ORIGINATING network to route the call over IP could you reduce costs rather than increase them. There are proposals, but they're a long way from univeral implementation...
The smaller VoIP operators in the UK are issuing numbers beginning with 0870. These are non-geographic numbers which are charged at the basic long-distance rate from wherever you call. However, since these calls are excluded from the discounts offered by most carriers on regular long-distance calls, there is some (small) surplus revenue which gets shared with the VoIP service provider and which pays for some of their costs. Change provider, lose your number as that revenue stream gets choked off.
There is also a block of numbers with the 07 prefix allocated for "personal" numbers - numbers that follow you to wherever you happen to be. These are charged at mobile rates, which accounts for their relative lack of uptake: you might as well have a mobile phone in your pocket than keep redirecting the "personal" number to your nearest landline as you move about.
A new block of numbers has provisionally been allocated for VoIP, but apart from BT, no-one really seems yet to be using it.
However, the point about all of these numbers is that they cost more to call than a regular landline. Some cost more than others, but they all cost more.
Part of this is due to the fact that the telephone network is built to map numbers to physical equipment. There can be several local telephone service providers in the same geographic area and they're required to allow customers to move their numbers between competitors. The only way this can happen is for the calls to go to the network which orginally allocated the number and for it then to be bounced on to the new terminating network: this is a cost to the network with whom the customer is no longer doing business.
The same technological constraint applies to non-geographic numbers: someone has to own and operate the terminating equipment for the dialled number and then relay the call on to a "genuine" landline. However, in this case, the telco gets to charge for its services. Which is why the calls cost more.
The same thing is true for landline calls to VoIP numbers: they have to go to terminating equipment somewhere and hop off onto the IP network. If you want to change your provider and keep your number, someone has to pay to keep that terminating equipment in place. That someone is probably you.
Of course, it would be possible to re-engineer the phone networks so that the whole of the number you dial is looked up to make the routing decision rather than the first few digits, but look back a few years at the problem of growing Internet routing tables and remember why CIDR was invented.
The real solution is an alpha keypad you can type your domain name on...
Don't know about the US, but in the UK I'm pretty sure it's illegal to provide transit/termination for third party calls unless you have a telecommunications operator licence.
Most people want a phone that will reliably connect them to any number they dial - similar reasons explain why http://www.tpc.int/ is never going to be the average person's choice of fax service.
When your clothes have RFID chips and your passport and driving license and you're in an environment where everything else has been chipped, are the scanners going to be able to pick up anything but noise?
Despite having a 2.6 kernel (which in theory includes the DVB drivers) and a weekend to spare, I still failed to get anywhere close to getting vdr running. It does *not* support receving and replaying DVB-T with any readily-available DVB-T card. It will fully support DVB-T with such cards *only* if a DVB-S card with MPEG decoder is also present *or* at the cost of some considerable further complication and reduced functionality if you also have an old DXR-3 card or a Hauppauge MediaMVP.
I suspect the Siemens box will have a lower total cost than the vdr solution and will have the considerable advantage of being installed by simply plugging in the power.
We will all go together, wait and see
Though the means still remains a mystery
We may drown or choke or stifle
So if you don't own a rifle
Throw yourself beneath your neigbour's SUV
As most people in the UK who get broadband do so via their (regulated) phone line, regulating VoIP too would be overkill: most people will still have their emergency service via their regular phone and be able to make other calls in the same way.
When/if there is significant competition for the "last mile", I'm sure regulation will be revisited.
Last time I checked, there was nothing stopping people composing their own music.
The record companies may be greedy monopolistic talent processors and their tactics akin to legalised gangsterism, but their product is not critical to life. If you're sufficient of an idiot to pay for "personalised" phone covers and ringtones, you deserve exploiting.
Learn to "personalise" it yourself, rather than borrowing someone else's personality.
This would be the same BT that provides the infrastructure for the vast majority of broadband connections in the UK. I think you could translate this statement as:
Rather than get diminishing revenue from our legacy copper as call prices continue to fall, let's get more money out of people by charging them for broadband AS WELL AS FOR PHONE CALLS.
If you factor in the line rental (which you pay to have the copper in your house so you can get broadband), the cost of the broadband service itself and then the cost of BT's VoIP service, most BT subscribers would be better off using their phone to make phone calls...
Which, if you think about the economics of it all, makes perfect sense.