think the answer is simply to upgrade equipment to handle more bandwidth
Uhh, that is the answer dude. Comcast's problem isn't with IP Transit. Comcast's problem is the same problem faced by all cableco's -- they have a shared last mile. I don't know what speeds they offer, but I do know that my Roadrunner connection is 5.0/384. At 5.0 it takes less then nine customers to completely max out the downstream on a DOCSIS channel. The only real solution to this problem is to split the network into smaller nodes so less people are sharing the bandwidth on them.
Here is an idea of what ISP's pay for broadband.
Eight dollars a megabit? So then why the hell is Comcast worrying about seeders? I have a whooping 384kbits of upload. That works out to around $3/mo. I'm paying $44.95/mo for my connection.
No, I see no logical reason for them to worry about seeders at $8/mbit (and they doubtless pay less then that anyway). They are blocking seeding because they are either worried about the upstream channel on DOCSIS being pegged, or because they are in the content delivery business and don't like the idea of their network being used for piracy. Or a combination of both.
Actually, I think the way the Internet is tiered is that the end that makes the request pays. So that pesky upstream traffic is saving Comcast money. It's the downstream traffic that they're paying through the nose for.
Uhhhh, I always thought it was exactly the opposite? That upstream cost more money then downstream and this had to do with the way that the Tier 1 and Tier 2 carriers peer with each other? They don't like having massive amounts of traffic dumped on them through a peering arrangement because they then have to route that traffic to it's destination. Much better (from their perspective) if they can dump that traffic on someone else to deal with.
Yes. It's broken by design. Get rid of party-based systems, and institute some a little more... democratic.
Ok, so what's your proposal? How do you intend to do that? As somebody else said, it's human nature to group with people that share our beliefs. So what are you going to do? Outlaw that type of behavior?
Jesus fucking christ when will people stop repeating this tired old line!
Yes, BOTH parties are way too beholden to corporate interests. But to say they are the same is to display limitless ignorance of their platforms and the people running under them.
Do you honestly think that if Gore had been elected in 2000 that we'd be in Iraq right now?
That right there is a big enough difference for me not to completely lose hope in the Democratic Party.
Remember how Dean was "unable to beat Bush" so everyone voted Kerry in the primary?
Yeah, and how well did that work out again?
Seriously, Dean didn't lose because people thought he couldn't beat Bush. That was a factor in why he lost Iowa, but it wasn't the only factor, and he would have stood a good shot at bouncing back if the media hadn't basically destroyed him by repaying the scream clip over and over and over again.
A handful of Iowa voters decided that they wanted the (in their eyes) more electable candidate. Then the media basically repeated that over and over again until the rest of the nation bought it, hook, line and sinker.
I love how fucking Iowa and New Hampshire in combination with the media basically get to decide who our candidates are going to be.
Jon Stewart doesn't strike me as funny, and he just reinforces polarizing stereotypes with his jokes
How do you figure that? Jon Stewart is at his best when he is pointing out the hypocrisy of people. I've seen him do this equally as well to Democrats or Republicans. He's best at it when it doesn't even directly involve politics -- like his mockery of the press.
If you want truly equal treatment for all, vote Libertarian.
Including large corporations, right?
Seriously, and I'm not trolling here, but that's my single biggest issue with voting Libertarian. I do not agree with, nor do I think their laissez-faire approach to economics will work in this day and age.
It's all well and good to say that Government should stay out of our bedrooms. But to say that Government should privatize everything from social security, to water resources to roads is where I start to have a serious problem. To say that we should end all regulations on business frankly scares the hell out of me. Taken to the extreme, some Libertarians would even advocate getting rid of Government agencies like the FDA or USDA and having a private company certify that our drugs and food are safe.
If by some fluke Ron Paul wins the Republican nomination I will seriously consider voting for him, in spite of my hesitation about their economic policies, because at least I know where he stands and what he believes in, even if I disagree with it. But I wonder if all the people clamoring for a Libertarian candidate have really stopped to think about what they actually stand for, beyond the civil liberties aspect.
Ideally we'd have a Democrat that actually cares about civil liberties win the nomination. Run the economy from the center-left and go to the far left for civil liberties, which means no more war on drugs, no Patriot Act, etc, etc. Of course this won't happen -- Hillary is many things, some of which I respect, but she's also part of the establishment and if her comments on Iraq are any indication, we can assume she has a vested interest in preserving the status quo. I'll probably wind up voting for Edwards or Obama when the primary hits my state, for what that's worth.
HAHAHAHAHAHA! Thanks for that, I now know exactly how ignorant you are.
Oh, blow it out your fucking ass. My point was to dispute all of the idiots like you that think we invaded Iraq solely to secure resources. That's clearly not the case.
More rolling around on the floor laughing my ass off. You're clueless. Get your head outta Time magazine's ass, and get a wider perspective, then get back to me.
I don't even want to ask what Time did to piss you off. But again, here we go. We go it alone and invade Iraq and piss the world off. Now we work with the EU over Iran and the Eastern powers over North Korea and your still pissed? So what exactly would the United States have to do to make you happy?
Gearing up the propganda mill to underwrite an invasion of Iran
Give me a fucking break. Care to cite some sources or are you just blowing smoke out of your ass?
but what it looks like they're trying to do borders on the insane
And just what are they "trying to do"? Got some sources?
There's plenty more, but that's number one on my list right now.
Hey, if I had it my way we'd go back to the isolationism of the 30s and let the rest of you bastards beat the shit out of each other. Of course the powers that be have decided that isn't a good course of action. More's the pity.
I think you missed the boat on that one by at least 6 years.
Really? We're acting like "old school imperialists", are we? Where's my $1/gal gas then?
And I know it's popular to trot out that tired cliche. How do you hate 300 million people?
How do you hate 300 million people?
By calling them imperialist running dogs on an online forum?
Meanwhile, you can tag my mood at the current US foreign policy as shellshocked
And what specific aspect of our foreign policy has you "shellshocked", because I think it's been a lot less stupid lately. Iraq was/is a disaster, but we are working with the international community to find acceptable solutions to the problems with Iran and North Korea. Granted, that doesn't defend the previous actions of the Bush administration, but I'm wondering just what it is we are doing right now that has you "shellshocked"?
You could start by getting a sense of humour.
Yeah, because your post was so obviously labeled as a joke.....
If the policies and services aren't the Telco's product, what is
Uhh, where did I say that services weren't their product? By and large the services (voice, data) don't suck. It's the policies (sign this contract) and customer service that sucks.
I can't really count any infrastruture as even being visible externally, customer don't really care how well the infrastruture is managed
Where did I say the customer does? I was pointing out the fact that having to build all that infrastructure is a barrier to entry.
If I were them, I woould be going with a solar powered Merakit (or it's WiMax equivalent) and say, a google/iphone internet phone operating on unlicensed bands. What we don't know is how efficient a mesh network they have developed, how cheaply they could manufacture the mesh nodes, or how much installation property they own in the US.
So basically your whole theory to China Telecom destroying the big four in the US boils down to them deploying a nationwide unlicensed mesh network that's somehow going to compete with and provide a more reliable product then the dozens of megahertz of dedicated spectrum that the existing carriers have? Are you serious?
and that the recent downturn in the US housing market has left an opportunity for placing nodes almost anywhere in the United States
We are talking about wireless and somehow you bring in the US housing market??? Placing nodes isn't the problem -- there's dozens of guyed towers, monopoles, water towers, tall buildings, church steeples, etc, etc that are more then happy to lease you space for just about any wireless venture. The problem is getting spectrum, affording all of that equipment and marketing your product to customers.
Termination fees are only effective if they are sparingly applied to individuals, a mass cancellation would bankrupt the Telco's long before the fees were paid.
And just how are you going to go about making this "mass cancellation" happen?
CMCC could do a hostile takeover of any of the US telco carriers if it wanted
Jesus Christ, your dreaming! Verizon's market cap is 130 billion dollars, AT&T is 248 billion, Sprint is 47.5 billion and Deutsche Telekom is 87.8 billion. Besides which, hostile takeovers haven't been popular or effective since the 80s. And it's a pretty big assumption to assume that the US Government would allow major telecommunications companies to be bought out by a company that is controlled/owned by by a foreign government.
But given that the Chinese government is going to be not at all shy about nominating scapegoats when the bubble collapses, even attempting a strategy like this could mean the difference between a nice stay in the country for a few years and becoming an SKU in the China's organ banks.
I'm sorry but I have a hard time buying any of this. And even if I did I would find it very hard to root for a Chinese Government takeover of the US Telecommunications market, regardless of how well intentioned they are or how nice the customer service would be. Your whole theory is a bunch of speculation without a single citation to back it up.
Show some evidence that your Chinese Telecom company is considering breaking into the US market. Show me some headsets licensed by the FCC (Part 15) to operate in the US on this mesh network. Show me what unlicensed bands they plan to use and how they plan to avoid being drowned out by bluetooth, wi-fi and baby monitors. Show some evidence that they are buying airtime on the existing carriers and considering being a MVNO. Until the
Imperialist running dogs? Got that old-school flavour....
Well, maybe we should start acting like old-school imperialists then. Or maybe you should keep your flamebait opinions to yourself.
I know it's popular to hate the United States right now, and our clueless administration hasn't helped matters, but perhaps some perspective would be in order?
2. "You install Windows or we suddenly stop ignoring how much pirated Microsoft software you're running."
And exactly what is Microsoft going to be able to do to a sovereign Government that pirates their products? Sue them in the United States District Court?
About the only thing I could see happening is they push the US Government to push the WTO to punish them, but this assumes that Nigers economy isn't already in the shitter and that are a member of the WTO (are they?) to begin with.
Wow. Just wow. I don't even know where to begin. I don't think your comparison of the US Telecommunications industry to Detroit in the 70s/80s is very valid. The Japanese slaughtered Detroit because Detroit was putting one one crap car after another (gas guzzling boats during the first energy crisis) and banking on their reputation and entrenched market position to protect them.
While anybody with half a brain would agree that the current state of the wireless industry in the United States sucks, it's a far cry from Detroit in the 70s/80s. The product that they are selling doesn't suck -- the policies and customer service behind the product is what the problem is.
But, there are two points you should keep in mind. As you say, US telco's are extremely vulnerable
How the hell are they "extremely vulnerable"? They have hundreds of millions of customers, many of whom are locked into long term contracts. AT&T, Verizon and Sprint all own assets (landline businesses and Tier 1 internet backbones) worth billions of dollars. T-Mobile USA is backed by a company partially owned by the German Government with billions of dollars in the bank (look at how much they spent during the AWS auction).
Consider your example, T-Mobile. T-Mobile has some people (especially in customer service) that would be stars in any company.
Yeah, and have you ever talked to any of them? I don't know a single person working for T-Mobile that doesn't love it there. Hell, go read this and tell me if you seriously think that T-Mobile is in any danger of losing it's best people to an upstart wireless carrier backed by a Pacific Rim telco. I have less experience with Verizon, but the few people I've talked to that worked there all loved it and are more or less well taken care of.
Coverage isn't a single criteria for measuring strength or vulnerability. US cellular, does not have much coverage, but coverage is not one of the issues they are vulnerable on; they do very well with the coverage they have
No, it's not the single criteria. I'm quite happy with T-Mobile in spite of the very limited coverage in my area. But you can't run a cellular network with NO COVERAGE. To get coverage, you need to invest billions upon billions of dollars in spectrum auctions, equipment, etc, etc. There aren't even any real buy-out options left for somebody looking to enter the market. None of the big four are for sale. Alltel went to a private equity firm that intends to do god knows what with them (the initial rumor was dismember them and sell the pieces to the big four).
And even if something (like Alltel) was for sale, the big four would spend as much money as it took to prevent a new company from entering the market. Cingular overspent by billions of dollars to win the bidding war with Vodaphone over the old AT&T wireless. You think "the new at&t" or Verizon are going to be any less aggressive now?
People don't change carriers because of features (usually, ask Amp'd) but negative experiences are a horse of a different color.
No, people are idiots and won't change over negative experiences when those experiences would cost them a hefty $175 - $200 termination fee. By the time the contract is over the vast majority of them are only too willing to sign another one to get a "free" phone.
I'm sorry, I'd love to see somebody new come into the market and shake things up, but I just don't see any of the big four as being as being nearly as vulnerable as you seem to think they are. The most vulnerable one would probably be Sprint (boy, buying out Nextel was a mistake...), but even they have strengths to fall back on and a massive amount of cash sitting around. And it will cost billions of dollars to break into the US wireless market. Name
No, I suppose I do have the "choice" to spend as much, if not more, on landline service that I can't take with me. Wireless (along with internet access) should be considered a utility in the 21st century, not a luxury.
you can always go month-to-month with a non-subsidized phone
Bzzzzt! No you can't! Even if you bring your own phone and they aren't subsidizing a dime, none of the big four will let you sign up for post-paid service without a contract. They consider things like mobile to mobile and nights and weekends "promotions" that require a contract, even though they have been offering those things for years now.
pay-as-you-go
Pay as you go is a great option for somebody that only wants a cell phone for emergencies. It's useless for somebody that wants it as a primary means of communication. It will always cost you more then post-paid service and it virtually never has any of the perks (free N&W). The providers have purposefully crippled their pre-paid options because they don't want to see a marketplace like Europe emerge. I'll give a tip of the hat to T-Mobile, who recently came up with something called Flex Pay, that more or less allows you to pre-pay and have the advantages of "normal" service, though a few features are still missing.
I lived most most my life happily without a cell, but now cellphones are something everyone deserves to own, and own cheaply, on their own terms
They aren't something that people deserve. In many cases they are something that people need to have. Are you telling me that we should have to give up having access to modern technology because the cartel that is control of it is screwing over customers?
ou know, it costs millions and millions of dollars to build a modern cell network. Go down to South America and see what communication would be like without cell carriers investing millions. Do they not deserve a return?
Find me one person that said they don't deserve a return. The issue isn't with the profits that the carriers are making. The issue is with how they treat their customers. Are you seriously telling me that it would be impossible for them to make money without long term contracts, crippled phones and AUPs that lock you out of competing services (Verizon Wireless and their data plans)?
Don't buy the contract, accept the contract, then bitch about it later.
It's not a "contract". A "contract" to my mind implies both parties coming to an acceptable agreement to enter into business together. The cellular industry version of a "contract" is a document that is completely biased in their favor, that they can change at any time even after it has been signed. Take it or leave it.
We wouldn't accept this type of behavior on the part of the water company or electric company. While wireless isn't quite as essential to daily living as electricity is, I would again make the argument that in the 21st century it ought to be considered a utility and not a luxury. There is no reason why I should have to bend over and take it up the ass without lube to be able to use a useful service. A service, btw, that wouldn't exist if it wasn't for the public (through our elected representatives) granting them permission to operate on the public airwaves.
www.einsteinwireless.net A wireless company with no contracts, no sim locked phones. 35 bucks a month for unlimited calling time. No good if you live outside of wisconsin, but at least one company does get it.
Don't worry, they'll be bought out soon enough:( All the local carriers around here sold out. The last one (Dobson/Cellular One) recently went to AT&T.
Basically. Though I wasn't pointing it out to bitch about that fee in specific (though they really are a bunch of fucking bastards aren't they?), merely to refute the assumption that the carriers want to see people ditch landlines.
If Verizon was keen on me ditching my landline they would have offered some sort of bundle deal for the wireless and DSL, instead of nickel and diming me for ditching a service that I never used.
Didn't you get the memo? It's "The new at&t" now;)
T-Shitty - both of these networks are less than... adiquate
Define adequate. I took a coverage hit to switch to T-Mobile instead of Verizon and live in one of the worst areas for T-Mobile (Binghamton, NY). Go to this site and key in "Binghamton, NY" and check it out for yourself.
In spite of the spotty rural coverage, it works at my house, it works all around the city and it works in every major city where I would conceivably travel to. It worked like a charm in the Outer Banks when I went there for vacation. And on a daily basis it provides me with coverage in 90% of the areas where Verizon would have. Plus I can use it anywhere in the World free of charge with an open wi-fi and broadband connection. If I'm willing to pay I can use it almost anywhere in the World with a GSM network. Let me know how seamless that international roaming is for you with CDMA.
If you are an urban/suburban dweller then I don't see why T-Mobile isn't a viable solution. It doesn't work everywhere that Verizon does, but I honestly don't give a shit if my phone doesn't work in the boonies. I only go to the boonies if I want to escape for awhile, and when I'm looking to escape I really don't want my solitude interrupted by my fucking cell phone ringing.
he GSM system in the US uses two different carrier bands than GSM systems in the rest of the world.
Uhh, don't make it out like it's JUST the US. Most of the Americas use the 850/1900 bands. Europe and Asia tend to be 900/1800 And since when did quad-mode phones "cost significantly more"? My quad-band Motorola V195 on T-Mobile set me back a whooping $20 with one year contract. Don't want a contract? You can buy them on eBay for less then $50.
If you want the ability to use another companies sim card in your GSM phone, you have to UNLOCK your phone. Various companies have variously bad policies on this
Uhh, what exactly is a "bad policy"? T-Mobile will unlock them after you've been a customer for three months, free of charge. It's my understanding that AT&T's policy is similar, though I have no direct-hand experience with them.
GSM isn't as widely deployed (outside of major cities) as CDMA is, but it's a workable technology for any geek that would rather have control over their phone and use a published open standard instead of the crippled phones/royalties owed to Qualcomm of the CDMA market.
That's why the telcos are so keen on the idea of everyone going cellular
Uhh, where the hell did you get the idea that they are keen on it? If they are 'keen' on it, then why did Verizon hit me up for an extra $5/mo to have DSL without dialtone in spite of the fact that I had a Verizon Wireless account?
Sprint and especially T-Mobile (look at the Hotspot@Home service, marketed as landline replacement) might be keen on it, but that's because they don't have a landline business to worry about. I've seen zero evidence that Verizon or AT&T are encouraging people to ditch landlines. I'll grant you that landlines aren't on the top of their priority list anymore, hell Verizon has been fined by several state public service commissions for ignoring problems with the copper plant, but they aren't encouraging people to ditch them. If anything, all those landlines are a free source of revenue for them, because they don't have to invest hardly anything in the infrastructure.
Besides, I hope people do ditch landlines. If everybody had a cellular phone, then maybe the state legislators would grow some balls and give the various public service commissions oversight authority on the wireless carriers. They'd fight it tooth and nail, but while Verizon and AT&T might be big, most state Governments are bigger.
Wait a little while. It seems likely China Mobile and China Sat will be making a serious semi direct attempt on the US telco market soon. Judging from the example of Japan and Detroit carmakers, it should not take too long for the competitive landscape to change drastically when that happens.
And your basing this on what exactly? T-Mobile USA is owned Deutsche Telecom (ya know, Europe, the model for wireless that everybody wants here in the states) and while they are MUCH better then the other three when it comes to customer service, they still have all of the bad practices of the US wireless industry.
What makes you think that A) China Mobile won't act the same, B) They can build out a big enough network to even matter in the grand scheme of things? Hell, T-Mobile USA bought out a bunch of outfits in the day (VoiceStream and Omnipoint), is still doing so (Suncom) plus they've spent billions of dollars, and yet they still have the smallest native coverage area of the big four.
I'm not holding out a lot of hope for a solution here that isn't legislative.
how are you going to have a house without a bank account
Join a credit union. Most of them are less evil then banks and don't act like them.
How are you going to have a job without any telephone number
VoIP provider, perhaps? Or T-Mobile, the best of the worst in wireless when it comes to customer service?
How are you going to vote when you are an unemployed homeless person?
You won't be, but for the sake of the argument, even unemployed homeless people have the right to vote. Last time I checked, poll taxes are illegal in the United States.
Our best chance at lowering corruption and improving the average citizen's voice in government would be to break up our behemoth government by transferring most of the budget and power to the individual States
I've said this for a LONG TIME. I would vote Libertarians into office on a Federal level, abolish a ton of Federal stuff (basically everything outside of DoD, State and Treasury should be fair game) and let the states decide what to do. The blue states would doubtless move in and create state-level programs to replace Federal stuff like Social Security. Albany is a hell of a lot more responsive to me then Washington is.....
But with that transition we would be sacrificing our superpower status
Why? What does social security have to do with our military? Our superpower status is a combination of military and economic power. I fail to see how becoming more Republican (as in the Government, not the party) and transferring power back to the states would harm our military or economic machines. DoD and Treasury would still be Federal responsibilities, as the Constitution specifically grants those powers (coin and regulate money, maintain the Army and Navy) to the Federal Government.
If you get AT&T (formerly Bellsouth,net), the the TOS says you can't share an 'open wifi' connection.
So does Time Warner's AUP. So what? How the hell are they gonna prove it? They gonna send trucks around the neighborhood to associate to open APs? I doubt they'd bother, and if they did, there are ways around it (WPA and sharing the key with your neighbors, MAC address white-listing, etc).
I'm merely pointing out where it's going to have issues.
I don't see not being able to use a UDP based p2p system on a campus or corporate network as a "problem". How would you use it with TCP in that scenario? Your gonna run your client through a Socks proxy? Yeah, the system admin is gonna love you for that;) Regardless, it would solve the issues people are having with brain-dead ISPs like Comcast. Especially if they went a step further and made the UDP traffic look like something else -- IPSec perhaps? They could still throttle based on traffic patterns, but it would be a lot harder.
Well, yes. ISP's pulling that level of filtering are, as you imply, doing so where choices for cheap and freely usable bandwidth are limited
Again, A) Why is that a deal-breaker when such ISPs (if they exist) are in the minority, B) Which ISPs?
Some folks do find the proxy filtering an issue in corporate networks
Sure, it would be a major issue for me, but thankfully I'm the system administrator and the rules don't apply to me;) (do as I say, not as I do....), but the point that I'm shooting for, is that it's not an issue to the intended audience of this new protocol (the warez/porn kiddies). How much of your warez and porn do you download at work?
Slashdot Mirror
Uhh, that is the answer dude. Comcast's problem isn't with IP Transit. Comcast's problem is the same problem faced by all cableco's -- they have a shared last mile. I don't know what speeds they offer, but I do know that my Roadrunner connection is 5.0/384. At 5.0 it takes less then nine customers to completely max out the downstream on a DOCSIS channel. The only real solution to this problem is to split the network into smaller nodes so less people are sharing the bandwidth on them.
Here is an idea of what ISP's pay for broadband.Eight dollars a megabit? So then why the hell is Comcast worrying about seeders? I have a whooping 384kbits of upload. That works out to around $3/mo. I'm paying $44.95/mo for my connection.
No, I see no logical reason for them to worry about seeders at $8/mbit (and they doubtless pay less then that anyway). They are blocking seeding because they are either worried about the upstream channel on DOCSIS being pegged, or because they are in the content delivery business and don't like the idea of their network being used for piracy. Or a combination of both.
Uhhhh, I always thought it was exactly the opposite? That upstream cost more money then downstream and this had to do with the way that the Tier 1 and Tier 2 carriers peer with each other? They don't like having massive amounts of traffic dumped on them through a peering arrangement because they then have to route that traffic to it's destination. Much better (from their perspective) if they can dump that traffic on someone else to deal with.
Is that not the case?
Ok, so what's your proposal? How do you intend to do that? As somebody else said, it's human nature to group with people that share our beliefs. So what are you going to do? Outlaw that type of behavior?
Jesus fucking christ when will people stop repeating this tired old line!
Yes, BOTH parties are way too beholden to corporate interests. But to say they are the same is to display limitless ignorance of their platforms and the people running under them.
Do you honestly think that if Gore had been elected in 2000 that we'd be in Iraq right now?
That right there is a big enough difference for me not to completely lose hope in the Democratic Party.
Yeah, and how well did that work out again?
Seriously, Dean didn't lose because people thought he couldn't beat Bush. That was a factor in why he lost Iowa, but it wasn't the only factor, and he would have stood a good shot at bouncing back if the media hadn't basically destroyed him by repaying the scream clip over and over and over again.
A handful of Iowa voters decided that they wanted the (in their eyes) more electable candidate. Then the media basically repeated that over and over again until the rest of the nation bought it, hook, line and sinker.
I love how fucking Iowa and New Hampshire in combination with the media basically get to decide who our candidates are going to be.
How do you figure that? Jon Stewart is at his best when he is pointing out the hypocrisy of people. I've seen him do this equally as well to Democrats or Republicans. He's best at it when it doesn't even directly involve politics -- like his mockery of the press.
Including large corporations, right?
Seriously, and I'm not trolling here, but that's my single biggest issue with voting Libertarian. I do not agree with, nor do I think their laissez-faire approach to economics will work in this day and age.
It's all well and good to say that Government should stay out of our bedrooms. But to say that Government should privatize everything from social security, to water resources to roads is where I start to have a serious problem. To say that we should end all regulations on business frankly scares the hell out of me. Taken to the extreme, some Libertarians would even advocate getting rid of Government agencies like the FDA or USDA and having a private company certify that our drugs and food are safe.
If by some fluke Ron Paul wins the Republican nomination I will seriously consider voting for him, in spite of my hesitation about their economic policies, because at least I know where he stands and what he believes in, even if I disagree with it. But I wonder if all the people clamoring for a Libertarian candidate have really stopped to think about what they actually stand for, beyond the civil liberties aspect.
Ideally we'd have a Democrat that actually cares about civil liberties win the nomination. Run the economy from the center-left and go to the far left for civil liberties, which means no more war on drugs, no Patriot Act, etc, etc. Of course this won't happen -- Hillary is many things, some of which I respect, but she's also part of the establishment and if her comments on Iraq are any indication, we can assume she has a vested interest in preserving the status quo. I'll probably wind up voting for Edwards or Obama when the primary hits my state, for what that's worth.
Oh, blow it out your fucking ass. My point was to dispute all of the idiots like you that think we invaded Iraq solely to secure resources. That's clearly not the case.
More rolling around on the floor laughing my ass off. You're clueless. Get your head outta Time magazine's ass, and get a wider perspective, then get back to me.I don't even want to ask what Time did to piss you off. But again, here we go. We go it alone and invade Iraq and piss the world off. Now we work with the EU over Iran and the Eastern powers over North Korea and your still pissed? So what exactly would the United States have to do to make you happy?
Gearing up the propganda mill to underwrite an invasion of IranGive me a fucking break. Care to cite some sources or are you just blowing smoke out of your ass?
but what it looks like they're trying to do borders on the insaneAnd just what are they "trying to do"? Got some sources?
There's plenty more, but that's number one on my list right now.Hey, if I had it my way we'd go back to the isolationism of the 30s and let the rest of you bastards beat the shit out of each other. Of course the powers that be have decided that isn't a good course of action. More's the pity.
Really? We're acting like "old school imperialists", are we? Where's my $1/gal gas then?
And I know it's popular to trot out that tired cliche. How do you hate 300 million people? How do you hate 300 million people?By calling them imperialist running dogs on an online forum?
Meanwhile, you can tag my mood at the current US foreign policy as shellshockedAnd what specific aspect of our foreign policy has you "shellshocked", because I think it's been a lot less stupid lately. Iraq was/is a disaster, but we are working with the international community to find acceptable solutions to the problems with Iran and North Korea. Granted, that doesn't defend the previous actions of the Bush administration, but I'm wondering just what it is we are doing right now that has you "shellshocked"?
You could start by getting a sense of humour.Yeah, because your post was so obviously labeled as a joke.....
If the policies and services aren't the Telco's product, what is
Uhh, where did I say that services weren't their product? By and large the services (voice, data) don't suck. It's the policies (sign this contract) and customer service that sucks.
I can't really count any infrastruture as even being visible externally, customer don't really care how well the infrastruture is managed
Where did I say the customer does? I was pointing out the fact that having to build all that infrastructure is a barrier to entry.
If I were them, I woould be going with a solar powered Merakit (or it's WiMax equivalent) and say, a google/iphone internet phone operating on unlicensed bands. What we don't know is how efficient a mesh network they have developed, how cheaply they could manufacture the mesh nodes, or how much installation property they own in the US.
So basically your whole theory to China Telecom destroying the big four in the US boils down to them deploying a nationwide unlicensed mesh network that's somehow going to compete with and provide a more reliable product then the dozens of megahertz of dedicated spectrum that the existing carriers have? Are you serious?
and that the recent downturn in the US housing market has left an opportunity for placing nodes almost anywhere in the United States
We are talking about wireless and somehow you bring in the US housing market??? Placing nodes isn't the problem -- there's dozens of guyed towers, monopoles, water towers, tall buildings, church steeples, etc, etc that are more then happy to lease you space for just about any wireless venture. The problem is getting spectrum, affording all of that equipment and marketing your product to customers.
Termination fees are only effective if they are sparingly applied to individuals, a mass cancellation would bankrupt the Telco's long before the fees were paid.
And just how are you going to go about making this "mass cancellation" happen?
CMCC could do a hostile takeover of any of the US telco carriers if it wanted
Jesus Christ, your dreaming! Verizon's market cap is 130 billion dollars, AT&T is 248 billion, Sprint is 47.5 billion and Deutsche Telekom is 87.8 billion. Besides which, hostile takeovers haven't been popular or effective since the 80s. And it's a pretty big assumption to assume that the US Government would allow major telecommunications companies to be bought out by a company that is controlled/owned by by a foreign government.
But given that the Chinese government is going to be not at all shy about nominating scapegoats when the bubble collapses, even attempting a strategy like this could mean the difference between a nice stay in the country for a few years and becoming an SKU in the China's organ banks.
I'm sorry but I have a hard time buying any of this. And even if I did I would find it very hard to root for a Chinese Government takeover of the US Telecommunications market, regardless of how well intentioned they are or how nice the customer service would be. Your whole theory is a bunch of speculation without a single citation to back it up.
Show some evidence that your Chinese Telecom company is considering breaking into the US market. Show me some headsets licensed by the FCC (Part 15) to operate in the US on this mesh network. Show me what unlicensed bands they plan to use and how they plan to avoid being drowned out by bluetooth, wi-fi and baby monitors. Show some evidence that they are buying airtime on the existing carriers and considering being a MVNO. Until the
Well, maybe we should start acting like old-school imperialists then. Or maybe you should keep your flamebait opinions to yourself.
I know it's popular to hate the United States right now, and our clueless administration hasn't helped matters, but perhaps some perspective would be in order?
You all suck.
The above is the perfect example of a /. newbie failing to include links in his post.
Ya can link to posts on /. instead of linking to "above", ya know? ;)
(And yeah, the dead horse has been beaten already.... care to guess on the number of ACs that reply to my comment, further beating it?)
And exactly what is Microsoft going to be able to do to a sovereign Government that pirates their products? Sue them in the United States District Court?
About the only thing I could see happening is they push the US Government to push the WTO to punish them, but this assumes that Nigers economy isn't already in the shitter and that are a member of the WTO (are they?) to begin with.
Wow. Just wow. I don't even know where to begin. I don't think your comparison of the US Telecommunications industry to Detroit in the 70s/80s is very valid. The Japanese slaughtered Detroit because Detroit was putting one one crap car after another (gas guzzling boats during the first energy crisis) and banking on their reputation and entrenched market position to protect them.
While anybody with half a brain would agree that the current state of the wireless industry in the United States sucks, it's a far cry from Detroit in the 70s/80s. The product that they are selling doesn't suck -- the policies and customer service behind the product is what the problem is.
But, there are two points you should keep in mind. As you say, US telco's are extremely vulnerable
How the hell are they "extremely vulnerable"? They have hundreds of millions of customers, many of whom are locked into long term contracts. AT&T, Verizon and Sprint all own assets (landline businesses and Tier 1 internet backbones) worth billions of dollars. T-Mobile USA is backed by a company partially owned by the German Government with billions of dollars in the bank (look at how much they spent during the AWS auction).
Consider your example, T-Mobile. T-Mobile has some people (especially in customer service) that would be stars in any company.
Yeah, and have you ever talked to any of them? I don't know a single person working for T-Mobile that doesn't love it there. Hell, go read this and tell me if you seriously think that T-Mobile is in any danger of losing it's best people to an upstart wireless carrier backed by a Pacific Rim telco. I have less experience with Verizon, but the few people I've talked to that worked there all loved it and are more or less well taken care of.
Coverage isn't a single criteria for measuring strength or vulnerability. US cellular, does not have much coverage, but coverage is not one of the issues they are vulnerable on; they do very well with the coverage they have
No, it's not the single criteria. I'm quite happy with T-Mobile in spite of the very limited coverage in my area. But you can't run a cellular network with NO COVERAGE. To get coverage, you need to invest billions upon billions of dollars in spectrum auctions, equipment, etc, etc. There aren't even any real buy-out options left for somebody looking to enter the market. None of the big four are for sale. Alltel went to a private equity firm that intends to do god knows what with them (the initial rumor was dismember them and sell the pieces to the big four).
And even if something (like Alltel) was for sale, the big four would spend as much money as it took to prevent a new company from entering the market. Cingular overspent by billions of dollars to win the bidding war with Vodaphone over the old AT&T wireless. You think "the new at&t" or Verizon are going to be any less aggressive now?
People don't change carriers because of features (usually, ask Amp'd) but negative experiences are a horse of a different color.
No, people are idiots and won't change over negative experiences when those experiences would cost them a hefty $175 - $200 termination fee. By the time the contract is over the vast majority of them are only too willing to sign another one to get a "free" phone.
I'm sorry, I'd love to see somebody new come into the market and shake things up, but I just don't see any of the big four as being as being nearly as vulnerable as you seem to think they are. The most vulnerable one would probably be Sprint (boy, buying out Nextel was a mistake...), but even they have strengths to fall back on and a massive amount of cash sitting around. And it will cost billions of dollars to break into the US wireless market. Name
No, I suppose I do have the "choice" to spend as much, if not more, on landline service that I can't take with me. Wireless (along with internet access) should be considered a utility in the 21st century, not a luxury.
you can always go month-to-month with a non-subsidized phoneBzzzzt! No you can't! Even if you bring your own phone and they aren't subsidizing a dime, none of the big four will let you sign up for post-paid service without a contract. They consider things like mobile to mobile and nights and weekends "promotions" that require a contract, even though they have been offering those things for years now.
pay-as-you-goPay as you go is a great option for somebody that only wants a cell phone for emergencies. It's useless for somebody that wants it as a primary means of communication. It will always cost you more then post-paid service and it virtually never has any of the perks (free N&W). The providers have purposefully crippled their pre-paid options because they don't want to see a marketplace like Europe emerge. I'll give a tip of the hat to T-Mobile, who recently came up with something called Flex Pay, that more or less allows you to pre-pay and have the advantages of "normal" service, though a few features are still missing.
I lived most most my life happily without a cell, but now cellphones are something everyone deserves to own, and own cheaply, on their own termsThey aren't something that people deserve. In many cases they are something that people need to have. Are you telling me that we should have to give up having access to modern technology because the cartel that is control of it is screwing over customers?
ou know, it costs millions and millions of dollars to build a modern cell network. Go down to South America and see what communication would be like without cell carriers investing millions. Do they not deserve a return?Find me one person that said they don't deserve a return. The issue isn't with the profits that the carriers are making. The issue is with how they treat their customers. Are you seriously telling me that it would be impossible for them to make money without long term contracts, crippled phones and AUPs that lock you out of competing services (Verizon Wireless and their data plans)?
Don't buy the contract, accept the contract, then bitch about it later.It's not a "contract". A "contract" to my mind implies both parties coming to an acceptable agreement to enter into business together. The cellular industry version of a "contract" is a document that is completely biased in their favor, that they can change at any time even after it has been signed. Take it or leave it.
We wouldn't accept this type of behavior on the part of the water company or electric company. While wireless isn't quite as essential to daily living as electricity is, I would again make the argument that in the 21st century it ought to be considered a utility and not a luxury. There is no reason why I should have to bend over and take it up the ass without lube to be able to use a useful service. A service, btw, that wouldn't exist if it wasn't for the public (through our elected representatives) granting them permission to operate on the public airwaves.
Don't worry, they'll be bought out soon enough :( All the local carriers around here sold out. The last one (Dobson/Cellular One) recently went to AT&T.
That's fucking awesome. It wouldn't help you if your phone is out of signal, but that's still pretty sweet. What phone are you using to do that?
Basically. Though I wasn't pointing it out to bitch about that fee in specific (though they really are a bunch of fucking bastards aren't they?), merely to refute the assumption that the carriers want to see people ditch landlines.
If Verizon was keen on me ditching my landline they would have offered some sort of bundle deal for the wireless and DSL, instead of nickel and diming me for ditching a service that I never used.
Didn't you get the memo? It's "The new at&t" now ;)
T-Shitty - both of these networks are less than... adiquateDefine adequate. I took a coverage hit to switch to T-Mobile instead of Verizon and live in one of the worst areas for T-Mobile (Binghamton, NY). Go to this site and key in "Binghamton, NY" and check it out for yourself.
In spite of the spotty rural coverage, it works at my house, it works all around the city and it works in every major city where I would conceivably travel to. It worked like a charm in the Outer Banks when I went there for vacation. And on a daily basis it provides me with coverage in 90% of the areas where Verizon would have. Plus I can use it anywhere in the World free of charge with an open wi-fi and broadband connection. If I'm willing to pay I can use it almost anywhere in the World with a GSM network. Let me know how seamless that international roaming is for you with CDMA.
If you are an urban/suburban dweller then I don't see why T-Mobile isn't a viable solution. It doesn't work everywhere that Verizon does, but I honestly don't give a shit if my phone doesn't work in the boonies. I only go to the boonies if I want to escape for awhile, and when I'm looking to escape I really don't want my solitude interrupted by my fucking cell phone ringing.
he GSM system in the US uses two different carrier bands than GSM systems in the rest of the world.Uhh, don't make it out like it's JUST the US. Most of the Americas use the 850/1900 bands. Europe and Asia tend to be 900/1800 And since when did quad-mode phones "cost significantly more"? My quad-band Motorola V195 on T-Mobile set me back a whooping $20 with one year contract. Don't want a contract? You can buy them on eBay for less then $50.
If you want the ability to use another companies sim card in your GSM phone, you have to UNLOCK your phone. Various companies have variously bad policies on thisUhh, what exactly is a "bad policy"? T-Mobile will unlock them after you've been a customer for three months, free of charge. It's my understanding that AT&T's policy is similar, though I have no direct-hand experience with them.
GSM isn't as widely deployed (outside of major cities) as CDMA is, but it's a workable technology for any geek that would rather have control over their phone and use a published open standard instead of the crippled phones/royalties owed to Qualcomm of the CDMA market.
Uhh, where the hell did you get the idea that they are keen on it? If they are 'keen' on it, then why did Verizon hit me up for an extra $5/mo to have DSL without dialtone in spite of the fact that I had a Verizon Wireless account?
Sprint and especially T-Mobile (look at the Hotspot@Home service, marketed as landline replacement) might be keen on it, but that's because they don't have a landline business to worry about. I've seen zero evidence that Verizon or AT&T are encouraging people to ditch landlines. I'll grant you that landlines aren't on the top of their priority list anymore, hell Verizon has been fined by several state public service commissions for ignoring problems with the copper plant, but they aren't encouraging people to ditch them. If anything, all those landlines are a free source of revenue for them, because they don't have to invest hardly anything in the infrastructure.
Besides, I hope people do ditch landlines. If everybody had a cellular phone, then maybe the state legislators would grow some balls and give the various public service commissions oversight authority on the wireless carriers. They'd fight it tooth and nail, but while Verizon and AT&T might be big, most state Governments are bigger.
And your basing this on what exactly? T-Mobile USA is owned Deutsche Telecom (ya know, Europe, the model for wireless that everybody wants here in the states) and while they are MUCH better then the other three when it comes to customer service, they still have all of the bad practices of the US wireless industry.
What makes you think that A) China Mobile won't act the same, B) They can build out a big enough network to even matter in the grand scheme of things? Hell, T-Mobile USA bought out a bunch of outfits in the day (VoiceStream and Omnipoint), is still doing so (Suncom) plus they've spent billions of dollars, and yet they still have the smallest native coverage area of the big four.
I'm not holding out a lot of hope for a solution here that isn't legislative.
.... received multi-million dollar golden parachutes...... err, wait, he's not talking about a modern company ;)
Join a credit union. Most of them are less evil then banks and don't act like them.
How are you going to have a job without any telephone numberVoIP provider, perhaps? Or T-Mobile, the best of the worst in wireless when it comes to customer service?
How are you going to vote when you are an unemployed homeless person?You won't be, but for the sake of the argument, even unemployed homeless people have the right to vote. Last time I checked, poll taxes are illegal in the United States.
Our best chance at lowering corruption and improving the average citizen's voice in government would be to break up our behemoth government by transferring most of the budget and power to the individual StatesI've said this for a LONG TIME. I would vote Libertarians into office on a Federal level, abolish a ton of Federal stuff (basically everything outside of DoD, State and Treasury should be fair game) and let the states decide what to do. The blue states would doubtless move in and create state-level programs to replace Federal stuff like Social Security. Albany is a hell of a lot more responsive to me then Washington is.....
But with that transition we would be sacrificing our superpower statusWhy? What does social security have to do with our military? Our superpower status is a combination of military and economic power. I fail to see how becoming more Republican (as in the Government, not the party) and transferring power back to the states would harm our military or economic machines. DoD and Treasury would still be Federal responsibilities, as the Constitution specifically grants those powers (coin and regulate money, maintain the Army and Navy) to the Federal Government.
So does Time Warner's AUP. So what? How the hell are they gonna prove it? They gonna send trucks around the neighborhood to associate to open APs? I doubt they'd bother, and if they did, there are ways around it (WPA and sharing the key with your neighbors, MAC address white-listing, etc).
I don't see not being able to use a UDP based p2p system on a campus or corporate network as a "problem". How would you use it with TCP in that scenario? Your gonna run your client through a Socks proxy? Yeah, the system admin is gonna love you for that ;) Regardless, it would solve the issues people are having with brain-dead ISPs like Comcast. Especially if they went a step further and made the UDP traffic look like something else -- IPSec perhaps? They could still throttle based on traffic patterns, but it would be a lot harder.
Well, yes. ISP's pulling that level of filtering are, as you imply, doing so where choices for cheap and freely usable bandwidth are limitedAgain, A) Why is that a deal-breaker when such ISPs (if they exist) are in the minority, B) Which ISPs?
Some folks do find the proxy filtering an issue in corporate networksSure, it would be a major issue for me, but thankfully I'm the system administrator and the rules don't apply to me ;) (do as I say, not as I do....), but the point that I'm shooting for, is that it's not an issue to the intended audience of this new protocol (the warez/porn kiddies). How much of your warez and porn do you download at work?